Montgomery (AL) Gun Buy-Back: Don’t Bring Us Your Broken Ass Guns
Posted on
May 19, 2011 by
Robert Farago
The burghers of Montgomery, Alabama seem to have woken-up to an interesting, not entirely unpredictable, in fact totally obvious problem with their “gun buyback scheme”: people bring old, broken-ass guns. Weapons that are no more dangerous than a baseball bat. Less. Unlike most cities and police departments, Montgomery isn’t just going to ignore the issue and claim victory (showing the media the few weapons that look both functional and scary). “Instead of offering $50 per gun, the city will pay $50 per person,”
montgomeryadvertiser.com reports. “This is being done to discourage people who might misuse the program as a way to unload defective weapons, said Martha Earnhardt, a spokeswoman for the Montgomery Department of Public Safety.” Turns out . . .
The city held its first gun buyback program in 2000 and quickly was overwhelmed by the response, running out of money within 90 minutes, according to Montgomery Advertiser archives.
A councilman at the time made the observation that there were instances of people turning in as many as 20 guns at one time during that buyback, which offered $50 per gun.
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