|
Son of man, speak to the children of thy
people, and say unto them,
When I bring the sword upon a land, if the
people of the land take a man of their coasts,
and set him for their watchman:
If when he seeth the sword come upon the
land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people.
-- Ezekiel 33:2-3 "To keep the peace, keep your
piece"..... http://www.njlp.org/html/body_19990919gunbuybacks.html
Why criminals will love President
Clinton's
$15 million gun buyback program WASHINGTON, DC -- A plan by President
Clinton to spend $15 million to launch a nationwide gun "buyback" program is not
only a waste of money -- it's a cheap public relations stunt that will have zero
impact on gun crime, the Libertarian Party predicted today.
In recent local gun buybacks, a
majority of sellers were women and senior citizens who explained that they're
afraid of guns and wanted to get them out of the house.
In other words, these are the people
least likely to use them for criminal purposes.
"The only people who will benefit from this buyback program are politicians and criminals," said the party's national director, Steve Dasbach. "Criminals like it because it will take only a minuscule percentage of guns out of circulation -- almost all of them from law-abiding people who will become disarmed. And politicians like it because they get to spend our money while pretending to solve a problem." Last week, Clinton proposed to hand
out $15 million in federal grants to police departments to buy guns from public
housing residents as part of "the largest gun buyback project in American
history."
But before that $15 million is
squandered, politicians should study the evidence against government buyback
programs, said Dasbach. The fact is:
The people LEAST likely to turn in
guns are criminals.
"Expecting a criminal to turn in a
gun is like expecting a carpenter to turn in his favorite hammer -- or expecting
a politician to surrender his power to write more gun laws," said Dasbach.
"They're simply tools of the trade. Even dumb criminals are too smart to give up
their guns."
The people MOST likely to turn in guns are law-abiding citizens. "In recent local gun buybacks, a
majority of sellers were women and senior citizens who explained that they're
afraid of guns and wanted to get them out of the house. In other words, these
are the people least likely to use them for criminal purposes," said
Dasbach.
Buybacks disarm future crime victims. "Americans who turn in their guns can
no longer use them to defend themselves against murderers, rapists, and
thieves," said Dasbach. "It may be a voluntary disarmament program, but it's a
disarmament program nonetheless that leaves people defenseless against
criminals."
Buybacks encourage criminals to steal guns. "No-questions-asked buyback programs
actually give street thugs an incentive to steal firearms and sell them to
police departments," noted Dasbach. "So, this buyback program will help
criminals profit, while turning local police departments into fencing
operations."
Besides the Libertarians, does anyone else question the usefulness of gun buyback programs? Yes, said Dasbach: The federal
government. Out of the $15 million earmarked for this project, $1 million will
go to study the effectiveness of gun buyback programs.
"It's typical of the politicians:
They decide to spend $14 million on a program, and then spend $1 million to see
if they wasted that $14 million," he said. "If it was their own money, it would
be funny. Since it's the taxpayers' money, it's an outrage."
The government could save that $1
million, he said, by simply reviewing the research done by Florida State
University criminologist Gary Kleck, who found that buyback programs "have no
demonstrable impact on crime" -- but do yield "real political
benefits."
And then the government could save
the $14 million by simply canceling the buyback program, said
Dasbach.
"This program won't reduce crime, and
it's foolish to pretend otherwise," he said. "It's time to tell politicians that
Americans aren't buying the gun buyback program."
Bard
"keep
private lands in private hands"..... http://www.sovereignty.net/land/
|
