Right to Bear Arms & Other things

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."-Thomas Jefferson I think I have said enough about gun-buy backs so I would like to put my 2 cents in about the Dubai Ports world saga that is going on right now. I just find it amusing that they had been in the process of trying to buy these ports for several months before it went through. It seems to me like the government was not doing the proper background checks then, so now they have this 45 day halt of the sale to look more closesly at everything. Personally the sale should go through, because they are just in charge of unloading containers and not checking them, because that is the governemtns job. This sale might actually help improve port security, but it is kinda sad that it takes something like this to make it happen.

Created by Alan Gerken in partial fulfillment of requirements for Urban Lobbying II – Politics & the Media

International Gun Buy Backs

I came across an article that talked about a gun buy back program in Australia. This program seemed to be drastically different than many of the U.S. progrmas, due to the fact that they paid out what the firearms was actually worth. The one guy in the story is not a criminal he is just an avid target shooter and he is not using a saturday night special, but a gun that has a 30 cm barrel. A criminal is going to use some small pistol easy to conceal not the mamoth gun this guy is selling back. Someone might say the program should be succesfull due to them actually paying what a gun is worth. This buy back to place due to Austrailia's stringent gun laws that ban most guns on the market. After the new stricter gun laws were implemented crime should have gone down, but it did not. This article is a one sided, but it does show how strict the gun laws in Australia are.

I am no NRA gun nut and do believe that we do need to regulate guns. Austrailian laws are pretty harsh and they tend to ban a lot of guns that are generally used for hunting. How many stores are held up with a gun that is used to hunt Ducks? Hopefully we can learn from Australias mistakes they are making with there gun laws and buy back programs.

Created by Alan Gerken in partial fulfillment of requirements for Urban Lobbying II – Politics & the Media

Good Politics Bad Public Policy

These gun buy back policies are good politics, but are bad public policy. That is what Chicago Libertarian party chairman Matt Beauchamp called them. In a Libertarian party article he brought out several points that I have discussed in previous posts and some that I have not addressed yet. As I have said before these events are good publicity, they make for good pictures of some sheriff holding up some guns turned in and saying some comment about how the streets are safer now. The two main points brought up in the article are the fact that the sheriff's department is accepting firearms without proof of identification and they do not have a federal license to purchase firearms. Basically without asking for any identification criminals who have either stolen the gun they are selling back or trading in their cheap gun so they can upgrade to a better gun. With a better and bigger gun they will be much more effective at committing crimes, because heck I will definitely give them all my money if a 45 caliber is being pointed at me instead of wussy little 22 caliber. In general people won't want to show there id, because they are afraid that the government might be checking who has guns. Now to the other point brought up to buy guns a normal person needs a federal permit. So why should a sheriff office think they are above the law, because they are the law. That’s like letting a police officer shoplift. The libertarian party is always vigilant and there lawsuit helped expose this feel good political story as what it truly is, a bad public policy.

Created by Alan Gerken in partial fulfillment of requirements for Urban Lobbying II – Politics & the Media

Gun buybacks, just a publicity stunt?

I am sure that everyone at one time or another has seen a news story about gun buy backs and seen the pictures of tables full of guns that have been turned in. "Wow" a person must say when they see all these guns turned in, but a person should ask who is turning these guns in. Most likely they are being in turned by the ederly and by people that don't commit crimes. A criminal is not going to turn his 9mm in for $100 when he can rob the 7-eleven and get $300. For one of these buy backs to have any sucess it must target the handguns used in crime. This point was pointed out to me in an article by Dr. Edwin J. Feulner. He saidthat these buybacks don't target handguns like the 9mm used in the D.C. zoo shooting. He has the statistic that 65% of homocides are commited with a hangun and only 32% of guns bought during buybacks are handguns. I found a blog (some of the links in the previous blog no longer work) that has a very good post about gun buybacks. He shows the several different excuses the local police in Madison Wisconsin give for having the buybacks. They have to keep coming up with these excuses, because they know that after one reason is proved false they need to have another one. Overall in my opinion these are just PR stunts that have good pictures and probably make a few people in suburbia feel safer, but in reality places where crimes and murders with guns are high feel no different after this PR stunt.

Created by Alan Gerken in partial fulfillment of requirements for Urban Lobbying II – Politics & the Media

So searching some of the Blogs I found the mention of a gun buy back program that took place in Madison Wisconsin. Here is the link to the womans mention of the buy back. From the tone of the blog she sounds like a pretty liberal minded person and says it's great that someone donated the money to give people a $50 gift certificate to the mall for each gun they turned in. However, she does admit that a serious criminal will not give up their gun. This woman just wants people to not have guns and thinks that taking them away from people would be good. I am sorry if someone has an old crappy gun they should just smashed it on the driveway a few times then throw it in the trash not turn it in for money. The federal government has even gotten in the act to prevent some buy back progams. In 2001 the senate voted to not fund any gun buy back progams. If there was clear cut proof that these progams reduced crime then I would be all for them, but there is not any.

Created by Alan Gerken in partial fulfillment of requirements for Urban Lobbying II – Politics & the Media

Gun Buy Back Loopholes

So I was thinking the other day man I wonder if it would be possible to buy a new gun that was extrememly cheap and somehow make money buy selling it back at a gun buy back program. I am an avid hunter and know a few things about the price of certain guns. Let’s say they will buy back each gun for $100 no matter what condition it is in. The all might Wal-Mart sells single shot .410 shotguns for about $70. So with tax I could make amount $20 off each gun I sell and turn into a gun buy back program. You might wonder where I came up with the $100 for each gun, well a gun buy back program in Washington D.C. gave that much for a turned in gun in 1999. Looking at the huge report about the buy back I noticed one statistic that caught my eye they took in 116 guns that were either bbguns, replica guns, muzzle loaders, or toys. Come on police were taking in these guns you would think they would know the difference between a 12 guage shotgun and a red rider bbgun, but apparently they did not. Here is the link to the entire report about the D.C. buy back. http://atf.treas.gov/pub/fire-explo_pub/buy_back.htm

Created by Alan Gerken in partial fulfillment of requirements for Urban Lobbying II – Politics & the Media

My first blog post

The city of Cincinnati does have a problem with crime. There are many ideas people have to stop crime in this city and some of them are good and some of the are just plain stupid. For example: Curfews of 11:00 p.m for teenagers GOOD IDEA, Midnight basketball GOOD IDEA, Buy back of guns BAD IDEA. There are many other ways that crime can be reduced and gun buy back is not one of them. A gang member is not going to sell back 9mm that he uses. Looking for articles online I found this article online that points out some flaws in the buy back program. http://www.mcsm.org/buyback.html People use mondern semi automatic handugns such as a 9mm and the buy back in Boston in 1993 & 1994 showed that 75% of guns were from 1968 or older. HMM that makes me think that these people probably could have recieved more money for there guns if they took them to the Antique Road Show.

Created by Alan Gerken in partial fulfillment of requirements for Urban Lobbying II – Politics & the Media