MI: Cheap Gun Opportunity: Detroit 11 June Gun Turn In "buy back"

Picture from Phoenix, AZ gun turn-in event


There will be a gun turn in event in Detroit, Michigan, on Saturday, 11 June,  2016.  While these events are commonly labeled with the propaganda term "buyback" the guns were never owned by the people attempting to buy them.

The event will be held at Mathis Community Center, 19300 Greenfield Road, Detroit. 

The event is scheduled to run from 10 am until the gift card supply runs out. People often turn up early at these events.  At other turn-in events, some excellent buys were made after the gift cards ran out.

The incentive for the gun turn in is a $50 gift card.   From fox2detroit.com:

On Saturday, Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon, Judge Greg Mathis and the Group Caliber Collection will hold a gun buy-back program.

Cash for Caliber will be held at 10 a.m. at the Mathis Community Center on Greenfield.

Anyone can turn in their unloaded gun and receive a $50 gift card for each gun -- no questions asked.

Cash for Caliber is making a profit off of these destructive and deceptive events.

Mindich seems to have profited handsomely with the Cash for Caliber gig. From detroitnews.com:

Mindich donates 20 percent of sales to police department buy-back programs in Newark, New Jersey; Hartford, Connecticut; San Francisco and Detroit. So far, she’s raised over $135,000. Of that, $25,000 was allocated to Detroit’s buy-back event to cover the gift cards, marketing and set-up expenses.

Mindich donates 20 percent of sales to police departments, essentially as payment for items that would cost her much, much more on the open market.  But donating 20 percent means that 80 percent, or four times what she donates, goes to her for profit enterprise, Cash for Caliber.  Four times $135,000 is $540,000 dollars.  Not bad for a firm based on false premises and image, in a three and a half year run.

If you are near Detroit, you may have an opportunity to obtain good firearms at low prices.  Any working firearm is worth more than the $50 gift card offered in this program.

Private sales of firearms in Michigan are covered by this wikihow.com article.   Laws change, so Michigan private buyers should perform their own research to conform with the law.  

Private buyers should look for easy places for people to park so that the merchandise can be looked at prior to purchase.  People often bring several guns to these turn in events.  

You might want to read the insider story by private buyers in Jacksonville Florida to see how things were handled there.

Be prepared for a percentage of people who refuse to talk to anyone but police. All the private buyers that I saw at gun turn ins were polite and let ideologically driven people turn in their guns for a fraction of what they would be worth on the open market.

Signs are helpful, as are good grooming, cash, and a friendly attitude. Dale Carnegie's advise for dealing with people works very well. Risks of purchasing stolen guns are small. You can read about them at this article.

Across the country, communities, police departments and churches are sponsoring gun turn-ins to get "guns off the street". At many of these events, private buyers are showing up, offering cash for the more valuable guns. These private additions to the public turn-in are effective, no doubt, in getting more guns off the street, because they add to the resources that are available to those who want to get rid of guns for something of value, be it a grocery card or a number of twenty dollar bills.

You can help make the turn-in in your area more effective by standing on the curb with your "Cash for Guns" sign, or at a folding table, willing to offer more than the gift card for firearms that are more valuable. It would be best if numerous private parties were available, as more good guns could then be transferred into responsible hands.

This action serves many useful purposes. It stretches the turn-in budget so that more guns can be taken off the street. It helps keep fearful widows from being defrauded of most of the market value of the gun they are turning in. It prevents valuable assets from being destroyed by bureaucratic inflexibility. It is a win-win-win situation. The ideal situation for those organizing the turn in would be to allow private buyers to purchase the valuable guns, while having the organizers take the cheap guns "off the streets". As these events are ideologically driven, that seems unlikely, but it might be worth an attempt at outreach. All parties would benefit.

Private buyers dispel the pernicious message that guns are bad and should be destroyed.

Link to potential legal risk of buying a gun at one of these events

Link to article with numerous examples of private sales at gun turn in events

Link to an article about private buyers at Detroit event

Link to Phoenix Article: pictures of private buyers

©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
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