“THE CRIMINAL’S WEAPON IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM”
from TPATH, ©2013
(Mar. 5, 2013) — If anyone here in New Jersey still has any doubt that the Republican politicians in this state are any less progressive and ignorant than the Democrats they claim to oppose, this latest “gun buyback” program announced yesterday by our Republican Attorney General should put an end to it.
This latest idiocy is an extension of an earlier program in Camden and North Jersey where your politicians, the very people responsible for New Jersey’s billions of dollars of debt, handed over an estimated $1 million to gang bangers, criminals, burglars and thieves.
As has been the case not just here in New Jersey, gun buyback programs across the country such as Chicago, most of the weapons which were turned in have been old, rusty, damaged and inoperable and were not a danger to anyone.
It might be asking too much of our politicians to check statistics as to what extent gun-buying programs actually reduced violence before copying wasteful programs or continuing to hand over millions of taxpayer dollars to criminals and enterprising hoarders of useless junk. There are no real hard facts or legitimate ways to discern the validity of such programs, except to compare crime stats before and after the programs were instituted. No buyback program anywhere in this country has seen a drop in crime. In many areas crime actually increased.
Many cities across the country are reconsidering their gun-buying programs, finally, after millions of dollars wasted on this purely “feel-good” but truly dangerous program. New Jersey, however, has no intention of learning from others’ mistakes. No, sir, we need to follow the same idiotic paths as the fools who came before us.
Dangerous? Why is it dangerous? To answer that question you need to look at what weapons are turned in and of course, who is turning them in. Thanks to the “no- questions-asked policy,” anyone who has a stolen firearm or owns a firearm illegally can prance in and get up to $250 of your tax dollars. What will these “gentlemen” do with your money? Will they then drop out of the crime business, resign from their gangs, buy a suit and get a job on Wall Street? Not likely.
What is more probable is that he will take that money and buy more ammunition for the good gun he kept. You know, the one that can actually fire rounds as opposed to the rusted piece of junk you just paid him $100 for. Or he may combine the money you just gave him with money from his last crime and buy a really good weapon from Willie down on Springfield Ave.
As we stand by and watch our politicians pay good money for bad merchandise, we need to look into just who is turning in weapons and why? A few really nasty stats here.
1. Most of the weapons turned in are inoperable.
2. Every single criminal that has turned in a broken, rusted or cheap weapon either has another one or will purchase another one.
3. Many weapons turned in are old, were left to widows, have been stashed away in trunks or crawl spaces and would never have seen the light of day except someone decided to give them your money to throw theirs away.
4. Thefts of firearms always rise just prior to and during the “no-questions-asked” buyback programs.
A final note for all of you emotionally-controlled legislators and politicians. You may well think you are doing the right thing and saving lives with this ridiculous program. The hard facts are you are not saving lives, just wasting money. Criminals will always be armed, $100 will never encourage them not to be. And while you lay your progressive little heads down on your pillows each night, feeling comfortable that you did something to make New Jersey safer, the reality is, handing money to gang members may have had the opposite affect. Sleep on that.
How comfortable would you be if this program was named to reflect what it actually did?
Such as: “The Criminal’s Weapon Improvement Program”.
TPATH has a suggestion for a new law that would not cost taxpayers money and would make our streets safer.
It’s called “The Put Felons in Jail and Leave Honest Citizens Alone Act”