AL: Selma Gun Turn "buy back" in a Success for Private Buyers, Open Carry

A small gun turn in event was held on 7 November, 2015 in Selma, Alabama.  These events have been characterized by the propaganda term "buy back", but as the organizers never owned the guns in the first place, they cannot be "bought back".  The events have become less popular in recent years as private buyers have arranged to offer more for the more valuable guns taken to these events.  That was the case in Selma.  Robert W. Kennedy, Jr. was a private buyer at the Selma event, and commented on it.   From selmatimesjournal.com:

My name is Robert W. Kennedy Jr. and I am the founding member of BamaCarry..I offered more money..

Most of the guns were garbage..They refused to purchase broken guns..I was able to make quite a few good purchases..Rifles and Pistols..

I cannot wait for the next sale..

 

The event paid for 51 guns to be turned in, at $75 each.  They did not use the $5,000 that they had collected to pay people to turn in guns.  They were not happy with the presence of private buyers.  The private buyers also set up a video camera.  Private buyers have been harassed by police at previous gun turn ins.  Police Chief John Brock responded to criticism of the private buyers, noting that what they were doing was legal, and that they were prepared to defend their rights in the courtroom.   From the selmatimesjournal.com article, it appears that the First and Second Amendment activists were successful:

Police Chief John Brock said the group filmed from public property and does the same thing at other gun buy backs. He said they travel around buying antique guns that have high resell value.

“They are in it for a profit. They are looking for something worth more than several hundred dollars,” Brock said.

Brock said they also could sue government and law enforcement that interfere with their filming or buying.

“They sue people. They want people to tell them to leave. Everything they were doing was legal,” Brock said. “It’s perfectly legal to sell a gun … if I made them leave, there would be a lawsuit.”

In a post to BamaCarry.Org on Facebook, Robert Kennedy said that he offered to talk to a reporter, but that he was turned down.  Kennedy and his associate were openly carrying legal, holstered, handguns.

WSFA Montgomery was also there for a few minutes but never spoke with us or filmed us. When I approached the reporter he refused to explain why. I handed him a business card and jokingly thanked him for unbiased reporting..

I looked for WSFA articles about the event, but I was unable to find any mention of the private buyers and Second Amendment supporters.

Numerous academic studies have found that thee events have no measurable effect on crime.  The guns collected tend to be exactly the opposite of those used in crime, and the people who turn them in are seldom criminals.  The events primary purpose seems to be political theater, to drive home the narrative that "guns are bad", "more guns = more crime", and "guns should be turned in to police".

The presence of private buyers undercuts all of those points by showing that guns are valuable assets; responsible, law abiding people value guns, and that turning guns into the police is a way to lose a valuable item that could be worth more on the legal market.   The organizers of the event were upset with the private buyers.  From thesellmatimesjournal.com:

“It won’t be successful now if people are going to be videoed,” Benjamin said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to the gun buy back now.”

If the concern were to remove guns from a crime ridden neighborhood, the organizers would have been wise to cooperate with the private buyers.  Bring them into the event, have them purchase the valuable items, while reserving the money their money to obtain illegal or less valuable guns.  The guns would still have been removed from the neighborhood.  They would have been placed in responsible hands.   That fact that they were unwilling to consider such cooperation indicates that they were more concerned with political theater than getting illegal guns "off the street".

 ©2015 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
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