When in doubt, throw money at the problem and rely on the best intentions of man.
Such is the philosophy in crime-ridden cities that radiate their pestilence in all directions; from Utica, New York to Oakland, California, and whose leaders praise the successes of so-called gun buyback programs; a misnomer considering the government didn’t first sell the firearm.
And with the advent of 3-D printers, it has become easier for some industrious criminals to game the system and generate income in either cash or gift cards by turning in fake guns.
According to a story from ZeroHedge, typed up by a guy named Tyler Durden (yes, from “Fight Club,” evidently) a man named “Kem” printed 110 firearms on a $200 printer and turned them in to a gun buyback program held at the Utica Police Department in Oneida County, New York, in September.
“I 3D-printed a bunch of lower receivers and frames for different kinds of firearms,” he claimed, and it was apparently worth the six-hour drive from his home to make the transaction. After some haggling, “Kem” was grudgingly given his reward.
“And it ended with the guy and a lady from the budget office finally coming around with the 42 gift cards and counting them in front of me,” said “Kem”. “$21,000 in $500 gift cards.”
“I’m sure handing over $21,000 in gift cards to some punk kid after getting a bunch of plastic junk was a rousing success,” quipped “Kem.”
When asked by WKTV where he got the idea to invest in a 3-D printer to perpetrate the ruse, he gave this unsurprising response: Twitter.
If you can believe it, WKTV recently contacted the state Attorney General’s Office to no avail.
“I’m sure handing over $21,000 in gift cards to some punk kid after getting a bunch of plastic junk was a rousing success,” “Kem” regaled. “Gun buybacks are a fantastic way of showing, number one, that your policies don’t work, and, number 2, you’re creating perverse demand. You’re causing people to show up to these events, and, they don’t actually reduce crime whatsoever.”
A Pew research article from August sought to examine whether or not gun buyback programs are actually effective. Long story short, it’s all about the Benjamins.
Mark Anderson, a professor of economics at Montana State University, published a study with the National Bureau of Economic Research last year on the ineffectiveness of buyback events across the United States, the Pew article stated.
“Who’s choosing to turn their gun in?” Anderson rhetorically asked. “It’s probably not the person on the margins whose gun we’re trying to get off the street. That gun from Grandpa is not the one that is going to be involved in a crime later on. It’s the voluntary nature of these things.”
As for criminals and would-be criminals- the last people logically expected to surrender any il-gotten firearms – Anderson said, “They’re [government] offering food vouchers for $100; it’s a joke.”
“We need to get more creative. I guarantee you if you offer $400 a gun, they’re going to be flying off the street.”
As for Utica, a rather boo-hoo statement from a spokesperson at their Attorney General’s Office on Wednesday said, “It’s shameful that this individual exploited a program that has successfully taken thousands of guns off the streets to protect our communities from gun violence. We have partnered with local police throughout the state to recover more than 3,500 guns, and one individual’s greedy behavior won’t tarnish our work to promote public safety. We have adjusted our policies to ensure that no one can exploit this program again for personal gain.”
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Frank (Chip) Webster is a musician and composer, former teacher of percussion and U.S. Army Infantry veteran. He holds a degree in English from Arizona State University.
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