Why criminals will love Clinton's $15 million gun buyback program
WASHINGTON, DC -- A plan by President Clinton to spend $15 million to launch a nationwide gun "buyback" program is not only a waste of money -- it's a cheap public relations stunt that will have zero impact on gun crime, the Libertarian Party predicted today.
"The only people who will benefit from this buyback program are politicians and criminals," said the party's national director, Steve Dasbach. "Criminals like it because it will take only a minuscule percentage of guns out of circulation -- almost all of them from law-abiding people who will become disarmed. And politicians like it because they get to spend our money while pretending to solve a problem."
Last week, Clinton proposed to hand out $15 million in federal grants to police departments to buy guns from public housing residents as part of "the largest gun buyback project in American history."
But before that $15 million is squandered, politicians should study the evidence against government buyback programs, said Dasbach. The fact is:
* The people LEAST likely to turn in guns are criminals.
"Expecting a criminal to turn in a gun is like expecting a carpenter to turn in his favorite hammer -- or expecting a politician to surrender his power to write more gun laws," said Dasbach. "They're simply tools of the trade. Even dumb criminals are too smart to give up their guns."
* The people MOST likely to turn in guns are law-abiding citizens.
"In recent local gun buybacks, a majority of sellers were women and senior citizens who explained that they're afraid of guns and wanted to get them out of the house. In other words, these are the people least likely to use them for criminal purposes," said Dasbach.
* Buybacks disarm future crime victims.
"Americans who turn in their guns can no longer use them to defend themselves against murderers, rapists, and thieves," said Dasbach. "It may be a voluntary disarmament program, but it's a disarmament program nonetheless that leaves people defenseless against criminals."
* Buybacks encourage criminals to steal guns.
"No-questions-asked buyback programs actually give street thugs an incentive to steal firearms and sell them to police departments," noted Dasbach. "So, this buyback program will help criminals profit, while turning local police departments into fencing operations."
Besides the Libertarians, does anyone else question the usefulness of gun buyback programs?
Yes, said Dasbach: The federal government. Out of the $15 million earmarked for this project, $1 million will go to study the effectiveness of gun buyback programs.
"It's typical of the politicians: They decide to spend $14 million on a program, and then spend $1 million to see if they wasted that $14 million," he said. "If it was their own money, it would be funny. Since it's the taxpayers' money, it's an outrage."
The government could save that $1 million, he said, by simply reviewing the research done by Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck, who found that buyback programs "have no demonstrable impact on crime" -- but do yield "real political benefits."
And then the government could save the $14 million by simply canceling the buyback program, said Dasbach.
"This program won't reduce crime, and it's foolish to pretend otherwise," he said. "It's time to tell politicians that Americans aren't buying the gun buyback program."
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