Collectors Find Rare Weapons at Gun Buyback Programs
Arbitrage!


Even with an idea as dim as "gun buyback" schemes, the market shines through.
From Fox News:
When Schuyler Taylor attended a gun buyback program in Seattle last year, he wasn't hoping to turn in an unwanted firearm for a $50 gift card. He was looking to pay cold cash for a rare weapon.
Taylor, a 24-year-old gun enthusiast, is one of a growing number of collectors who has been showing up at the events, where towns, police departments, churches and nonprofits offer money or gift cards for old guns. The events have been held all over the country, credited by some for getting weapons off the streets and ridiculed by others for paying money for rusting junk. But collectors have taken notice that some of the guns, which are typically destroyed, are worth far more than they fetch at buyback events.
It was going to happen. If any of our readers have done this, they can share their experiences below.
Follow these stories and more at Reason 24/7 and don't forget you can e-mail stories to us at 24_7@reason.com and tweet us at @reason247.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
I'e heard about people doing this for years. If I wasn't allergic to cops and knew enough about older firearms to know what I was doing, I'd hit the buybacks up too.
Also, I guarantee that anything that comes into one of those programs that catches a cop's eye goes home with them.
This. Cops are gun collectors too. I knew one (now deceased) who had a collection of suicide guns. The families often didn't want to keep them, and would offer them to the investigating officers.
What finally got him? Cardiovascular disease?
Also, I guarantee that anything that comes into one of those programs that catches a cop's eye goes home with them.
Stupid plebe, you thought they actually destroyed any of them to start with?
knew enough about older firearms to know what I was doing
Condition, condition, condition!
Even a Spanish .25 is worth $50+ in nice shape.
Some gun enthusiasts are more smarter than others.
I find these comments mind-numbingly stupid:
Oy, dumb ass... they were about to cast those firearms into a furnace for $50.
The concepts of subjective value and arbitrage are more than many people can grasp.
Exhibit A: Pawn Stars
Why is it illegal to beat stupid people?
Because none of us are completely immune to bouts of stupid.
Wait, it is?
'Guns Save Life' Uses Chicago Buyback to Send Kids to NRA Gun Camp
That is just all kinds of awesome.
If anyone does this and sees a CZ-75 buy it. I will pay for it.
Seattle wants to shut that activity down:
http://www.shtfplan.com/headli.....w_01292013
Also a loophole that people are allowed to talk to strangers on the street without supervision or licensing by the state.
Also a loophole that people are allowed to talk to strangers on the street without supervision or licensing by the state.
Suspicion of terrorist activities has closed that one.
I like how compliance with current law is "a loophole".
McGinn can go fuck himself with a chainsaw. Washington State law states that no locality can enact firearm laws that are more restrictive than the state laws. Seattle has tried various schemes and gets shot down every fucking time. Hey McGinn, blow me you statist fuck.
McGinn can go fuck himself with a running chainsaw.
FIFY
Why waste the gas?
I had an accounting instructor in the late 1980s (still friends with him) who did this. He would check ID to make sure the gun holder was in-state too.
I have had my own Geraldo Rivera inspired gun buy program going on for a while, but no takers so far.
Somebody turned in a working bazooka at an LAPD gun buy back 2 years ago. I would have paid big money for it.
Wasn't it just a spent LAW tube? I remember them making a big deal over it and I thought it just turned out to be a non-reusable, completely harmless part that somebody likely brought home from their stint in the military.
I seem to remember it being an expended AT4 tube, or a training dummy... In either case it's a plastic tube with some levers and springs.. It's more dangerous as a blugeon than anything else. The pants shitting from the Piers Morgan-types in the media was pretty entertaining.
One can fashion it into a field expedient mortar.
You could do that with just about any sufficiently strong piece of metal piping, though.
Yes, that too.
Also bamboo.
That only works on Gorns.
Shit, my friends have one. Seems like nothing more than a wallhanger to me.
We used to play "army" with spent LAW tubes in the early 70s.
The dumbass army instructions on them are funny. "Point this way!"
I never got to fire an actual AT4, but we had a training version that fired a 9mm tracer round. The idea being that the range and velocity of a 9mm bullet and an actual AT4 round were similar
Attend one of these death cult festivals filled with armed strangers hoping to make a quick buck from their death machines? I'd vomit in my mouth. I found out my precious child's babysitter shoots these things for fun (FOR FUN) and sent that horrible woman a pink slip and some choice literature from the Brady campaign.
No thanks.
You should try it first, it's relaxing and you might even enjoy it.
I tell my dates that, but I'm lying.
Stimuluzz, it's Cash for Clunkers 2.0
I recall some schools were having buy backs of toy guns. Wonder what sort of rarities show up there.
Some of those first generation Super Soakers are worth a fortune.
And JARTS!
The horror! Kids with guns! Violent culture! Gasp!
I got weirded out by Super Soakers at some point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5CcjaQeqbM
Did you spend some time at Neverland with Mike?
I do have several missing time incidents.
OT: can someone please tell me when GoT S3 episodes are coming to iTunes? I bought my season pass and there's no episodes just some BS stuff.
Oh, its coming. And real soon too. And it'll be spectacular.
Wiener, wiener wiener, wiener
Apparently wiener is coming *spoiler alert*
Wrong wiener
For that price you can 4 months (and probably another free) of HBO and watch all the seasons whenever you want. Should last you through the next season too.
Dude makes a lot of sense man.
http://www.AnonGlobal.tk
"Report: Google buses have security guards"
They're not in uniform, nor are they (visibly) armed, so I'm not sure they aren't more to provide observation rather than "security".
http://blog.sfgate.com/techchr.....ty-guards/
Didn't union heavies try to start a riot around the bus? Pretending to be employees and such?
Security guard sounds like a good idea with that kind of opposition.
In 20 years this will become another "example" of management suppression of labor organizing. "Evil Google manned their buses with Pinkertons!"
And if you read a real history of the Homestead Strike, it was the union thugs who attacked the Pinkertons.
Herrin Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herrin_massacre
Wikipedia doesn't mention it, but the union thugs were involved in founding the KKK movement in the area, who were later driven off by a gang of bootleggers.
Yep.
So few people know what the hell a Pinkerton is now, In another 20 years of OMG culture that remark will be unrecognizable.
If you think you've had a bad day, well...
[removed][removed]
Tow truck driver?
A later tweet indicates he checked and there's no record of it being towed.
So most probable cause is theft.
Does he live near Amy Alkon?
Or, just as likely, it takes the city database about a week to catch up.
Gotta rack up those storage charges.
Serious question: where the hell do you check to see if your car has been towed?
No idea, but he tweeted this:
Matt Welch ?@mleewelch 2h
Yeah. It was vamooshed before the Towing Hour, and there's no records of it. RT @karol @mleewelch Did you check that it didn't get towed?
I'll take his word for it.
In SF, the tow trucks report to the cops; call them. You'll get an answer in, oh, long enough to have to pay storage fees.
Somebody who needs parts, or an easy to steal car. Was it a Legend? A Vigor?
'cause the TLs ain't turned twenty yet.
It was probably Paul Krugman trying to stimulate the economy.
Or an Occupier that doesn't believe in private property and redistributed the car according to his need.
and apparent ability
In his defense, Warty thought that was John Voight's car.
But that sucks. Sorry, Matt.
The dental evidence will tell the tale. Or the name on the original owner's manual.
I think the answer to that question is "Mary Stack".
Oh MAN. I had a '97 Integra and I loved it until I totaled it. I feel your pain, Welch.
Somehow I don't see Matt and the Missus with a 'teg in 2014. Less it is a HF or DX w/ a slushbox.
From the reply tweets:
Caviar Mahoney ?@Billyprops 3h
@mleewelch based on his attire and sense of entitlement to other people's property, my money's on @JAMyerson
Myerson, AKA the Rolling Stone commie that wants to make everything owned by everyone. He replied:
Jesse A. Myerson ?@JAMyerson 3h
@Billyprops @mleewelch Lol you think possessions are the same as property. Like a SWF invests in cars, not financial assets. #fail
I wasn't aware there was a difference between possessions and property.
You have to unravel Leftspeak, which is no easy task right there. They talk of "personal property" being acceptable but "private property" is unacceptable.
I still cannot nail down what they mean by "personal property," if it is like personal vs. real property in the legal sense, or if they just mean what they happen to be touching at any given moment.
You can own weed, a bike,a jar of artisanal mayonnaise or an iPhone but the means of production, guns and capital should only be held collectively and managed by Top Men.
Which means that production of the above items will be slowed to a trickle only enough to supply the Top Men.
I have no problem whatsoever with that arrangement, provided ownership is divided among participants voluntarily. Members would own shares in the venture, so we'll call them shareholders. Also, the Top Men will need to be selected based on skill and expertise, so the shareholders would need to hold elections. Perhaps the most principle shareholders, those most invested in the venture, could form some sort of board or directorship to help oversee operations. They would be responsible for appointing or approving the officers who run the thing. This way, everyone owns a part of the company and everyone enjoys some of the proceeds. We could call it a cooperative, or a cooperation... or something.
Personal property is the stuff you're allowed to keep in the footlocker next to your bunk in the reeducation camps.
Stuff owned by the Marxist = possessions
Stuff owned by the bourgeoisie = property
Oooooooh yes - to these idiots, property is the things you use to make posessions and possessions are the things you use to make a living.
That's why I should have an equal share of your corporation and you can't have my Ipad.
I love that this guy is so pathetic he got involved when some random guy mocked him on twitter.
Wow, Myerson. You must have a really great life.
He seriously used 'LOL' and '#fail'.
Lol jk #fullcommunism
The best was when he described himself as someone who has a podcast about finances which often takes a 'sardonic and sarcastic' view of financial markets.
I believe any blog that takes a sardonic or sarcastic view of finance is somewhere you should not get your financial advice.
He's the incarnation of all evil in our generation.
..."The best was when he described himself as someone who has a podcast about finances which often takes a 'sardonic and sarcastic' view of financial markets."...
That's just loser code for 'when I get caught lying, it's a joke'.
He must "joke" a lot.
I tried to engage him once. He said something to the effect that communists want you to keep the fruits of your labor without the boss stealing a cut.
I ask him "are you saying 'bosses' don't play any meaningful role in producing stuff?"
And his response was simply: "See 'Capital', volume 1."
Appropriation of surplus value! Of course after reading that I had to cleanse my mind with some wisdom from Mises so I found these two gems:
The Bolshevists persistently tell us that religion is opium for the people. Marxism is indeed opium for those who might take to thinking and must therefore be weaned from it. --'On Socialism'
All the sophisticated syllogisms of the ponderous volumes published by Marx, Engels, and hundreds of Marxian authors cannot conceal the fact that the only and ultimate source of Marx's prophecy is an alleged inspiration by virtue of which Marx claims to have guessed the plans of the mysterious powers determining the course of history. Like Hegel, Marx was a prophet communicating to the people the revelation that an inner voice had imparted to him. --'Human Action'
Wait, he actually cited Das Kapital and still claims not to be a Communist?
I think he eschews the communist label because of its unfortunate association with, you know, mass murder and totalitarianism.
But he gets really pissy when people make a connection between socialism, Marx, and a boot stamping on a human face.
Well it's all OK as long as the right people are doing the stomping on the right faces.
You see, if a communist like Myerson steals your money before you buy the car, it's totally okay. If he steals the car itself, that would be theft.
It never occurs to Myerson that this would result in people buying tons of goods as quickly as possible so that the government wouldn't seize their assets. His view of 'property versus possessions' would therefore result in absurd inflation because no one would want to hold any money in the bank when the government would take it.
Jesse A. Myerson ?@JAMyerson 2h
The federal government doesn't put your tax dollars towards anything. After they are taxed, the dollars are no more.
I, uh, uh, what?
Having that level,of idiot on their show was a mistake.
Not completely reducing him to a quivering lump of slime, while they had the chance, was their mistake.
Francisco d Anconia|1.16.14 @ 11:31PM|#
"Not completely reducing him to a quivering lump of slime, while they had the chance, was their mistake."
I had no intention of watching another talk show, but this merely confirmed it.
When that slime-ball was treated with anything other than the pure derision he deserved, it became obvious that this is one more 'happy faces' bullshit show.
Sorry, Matt; clean up your act or admit you're just happy to get your mug on TV.
Maybe I should get a twitter account, then I could reply
'Wait, you're actually saying that the government takes 20%+ of my income and then, what, burns it? If they can fund all the crap they do without money, then why do we need taxes in the first place?'
So how does the whole discovering your car stolen thought process go?
I would spend like a half an hour questioning if I correctly remembered where I parked it. Then another half hour thinking, somebody's fuckin with me.
No way I'm calling the cops and then go, oh yeah, I left it the next block over.
Did you wander around looking for it for a while?
It depends. If you park in the same place everyday, you call the police immediately.
If you've spent an evening in the French Quarter, you wander around for awhile wondering if NOLA made us crazy or if it stole my girlfriends car.
I watched for it on the Barret-Jackson auction, no dice.
Every time I see pics from one of these gun buy backs, I have to wipe a tear from my eye 'cos they invariably show some collectible (no doubt stolen from a legit collection ) going under the steamroller or into the scrapper jaws.
MP40's, StG44's, others.
Stupid fucking animists.
Epi, kill them for the rest of us, will you?
Technically it is illegal to destroy these (if they are registered) without informing the ATF. If they are registered under the NFA as machineguns, their disposition needs to be recorded in the National Firearms Registry Transaction Record (NFRTR).
Think anyone tried this at cash for clunkers turnins?
Cash for kittens.
The eternal reminder that the animal rights crowd lacks a sense of humor or proportionality
Many of these rarities are stolen guns from serious collections or uncareful owners. The cops don't bother checking if they're stolen because, "no questions asked."
There is a serious trade in stolen guns that needs to be stopped, no question. It needs to start with cops not enabling the trade.
Too bad "no questions asked" does not mean not questioning the presenter, but checking reported stolen records afterwards.
Look man, its for the greater good . . .
-the greater good-
Stop that!
If these people couldn't keep their gun locked up then they aren't responsible gun owners, amirite?
According to HazelMeade, gun owners are responsible for any and all criminal activity subsequent to being the victim of a crime (having their gun stolen) and must therefore be require by law to purchase liability insurance (you know, like ObamaCare).
NOZICK!!!!!!111!1!1!!11
That's my point. Cops enable theft when they don't ask the presenters of guns at buybacks any questions. I'm sorry, but when some street trash brings in a gun that is worth several thousand dollars, there should be some questions.
Damn straight.
Fucking hoplophobes.
They are fences acting in a way that would get a pawn-shop busted.
Pile of dung dumped outside French National Assembly
What is that, about 1,000 Courics? Probably approaching an Obama.
Hardly. At best 1,000 Courics is your average Congresscritter. To build an Obama out of shit would require more crap than the cattle of the Earth could produce.
Dark matter crap, like in Futurama?
We really are living in some science fiction dystopia:
(watch the video)
Racism Report
Thirteen House Democrats have proposed legislation that would require the government to study hate speech on the Internet, mobile phones and television and radio.
And then what? Shut down Youtube comments?
I mean, that'd be fine, but WHERE DOES IT END?
And I bet we'll get some really objective metric of racism.
some scale with definite and clearly defined levels of racism. Not some scale that goes from 'A lot of racism' to 'A fuck-ton of racism'.
If anyone knows racism it's Harry Reid.
We can trust him.
I like how he sneaks in that part at the end to show how much bullshit this is.
WAHHHHH!! Mommy! People are saying things I don't like! Make them stop!
Earlier today, I posted "Oh, for the days of thinking big in space."
I was a bit facetious there, but I mean it. In space, the biggest hydrogen bomb the human race has ever dreamed of exploding is a pitiful sneeze on the cosmic scale. We are a species destined for greatness, and we are continually trapped on this planet by small thinkers. It can be terribly frustrating sometimes.
We're not trapped here by small thinkers. We're trapped here by hard economic realities.
Even your plan includes bankrupting a (or several) nations to kickstart unsustainable (god the greens have given that word a bad meaning) then at best you're just going to get a few outposts in the inner system that will be extinct within a couple of decades.
Uhh, no. *MY* plan involves going out there when it is economical to do so, to exploit and extract mineral and energy resources that can be profitably sold.
Which is what's happening right now - all the large-scale profitable activity is in Earth orbit and is entirely unmanned, think satellites. Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, and others are taking risks by developing technology for future exploitation, hoping to give themselves a good lead position at the start of the next wave of expansion.
But nobody, outside of a government looking for a vanity project is ready to toss a 100 billion or more on a large-scale project like snagging an asteroid for harvesting.
And sorry, that sentence should have been 'even *if*' - I didn't intend to imply that was your preference.
I find the common complaint given by small thinkers, seemingly cribbed from Calvin and Hobbes, is the notion that humanity should clean up its act before ascending to the stars. Way to confuse the problem with the solution, as if availing ourselves to the material wealth beyond our planet (let alone relieving some of the "overpopulation") compromises our situation here at home.
It's an asinine position to take especially since we don't and can't know what form the eventual diaspora will take. We're already in the land of fairy tale conjectures and WAGs, but these snarky schmucks want to sneak in their bit of melodramatic misanthropy because Hey dreaming big is just soooo last century and ours is the era of plaintive mewling about the incorrigible, intractable human condition.
Social liberals put up explicit sex ed poster in class for 13-year-olds. A girl took a picture of the poster and a school spokesperson defends it:
"the item is meant to be part of a lesson, and so certainly as a standalone poster without the context of a teacher-led discussion, I could see that there might be some cause for concern....
""The curriculum it is a part of, it aligns with national standards around those topics, and it's part of our curriculum in the school district,""
The story, including a video with the picture:
http://fox4kc.com/2014/01/14/f.....on-poster/
Photo:
http://cdn.breitbart.com/media.....af-fox.jpg
They forgot twerking. GRINDING DOES NOT DO JUSTICE TO TWERKING.
Do some people find that erotic?
I actually don't. Just trashy.
Wait a minute. Saying "I like you" is expressing your sexual feelings? Dancing?
What Puritan wrote this?
Keep reading.
I'm with ya Eddy. I hate uptight prudes who would rather their children be ignorant than informed too.
But alas, we are libertarians and must accept the father's right to keep his child ignorant.
I'm not I get the logic...the girl will be more likely to get pregnant or catch a disease because she doesn't know the term "grinding"?
Or is it that, before modern sex ed curricula, teenage pregnancy was rampant, but now that these curricula have been adopted the rate is going down?
Because that is what the defenders of these curricula need to show.
Or I suppose they could say the increase would have been even bigger without them.
What the fuck does getting pregnant have to do with it. The reason for learning anything is to have knowledge that may be applicable later in life. She can learn the facts, or she can get garbage information from her friends that's more likely to get her in trouble.
Would you rather kids learn economics in high school or be kept ignorant and learn about economics from MSNBC?
They *do* teach economics. I learned economics in high school. And in college. From teachers who were literally Marxists. No joke.
But I'm sure the sex ed teachers are competent and unbiased!
And one of the MSNBC hosts is a college prof, meaning she has at least the ecpertise of some HS teacher!
So send your kid to private school.
Kids are talking about sex WAY before 13. Keep them ignorant Eddy...that'll serve them well.
Kids are talking about sex WAY before 13. Keep them ignorant Eddy...that'll serve them well.
I got my first handy when I was 12.
In Catholic school.
Goddamnit! Not from the priest, either!
You read my mind.
They *do* teach economics. I learned economics in high school. And in college. From teachers who were literally Marxists. No joke.
This completely explains your complete ignorance on issues (like economics) upon your arrival.
You may now mail us all checks for your education; also, please sue whoever got paid to "teach" you, because it was fraud.
But alas, we are libertarians and must accept the father's right to keep his child ignorant.
And make sure you put that "Obey" clause in those wedding vows! Don't find out the hard way how important it is.
What 13 year old hasn't heard of all that shit already? Doesn't matter how you were raised, I was still a good catholic then but the kind of stuff talked among the boys in school was far dirtier than that.
To be fair, we called it buttfucking, not "anal sex."
Don't you know that acknowledging the existence of such actions is the same as condoning them?
Fucking puritans.
Don't you know that acknowledging the existence of such actions is the same as condoning them?
Quite alright, I've got a management position lined up in Hell.
review of Jim Harbaugh's Walmart khakis
Yeah, and I'ma get right with the guy once he puts a team on the field that knows the game lasts 60 minutes.
Screw this 'They played really well in the second half and came from behind to almost win!'
Almost win = lose, for those who don't know and if they'd played the 1st half, they wouldn't have to 'come from behind'.
Some of us like coming from behind, Sevo.
Mikhail Koklyaev playing accordion in a snow-covered field
United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres said that democracy is a poor political system for fighting global warming. Communist China, she says, is the best model.
China may be the world's top emitter of carbon dioxide and struggling with major pollution problems of their own, but the country is "doing it right" when it comes to fighting global warming says Figueres.
Holy fuck, we're doomed. It's over. Throw in the towel.
If there are people this fucking stupid, we've already lost.
No. Shove that fucking towel done their throat.
I don't think that even counts as being a watermelon anymore. She's simply an outright commie.
"They actually want to breathe air that they don't have to look at," she said. "They're not doing this because they want to save the planet. They're doing it because it's in their national interest."
surprisingly reasonable
Of course this happened in the US 30+ years ago, so I don't see why it should count in China's favor.
So, she's saying that we should get the US to be as polluted as China so that we'll then have the incentive to force through a bunch of coercive and expensive legislation and regulation to clean up that pollution?
Or we could, you know, just keep making the incremental improvements we are as costs come down.
No, that's not what she's saying.
Here's a graph of U.S. carbon emissions.
We are currently at levels not seen since 1991.
Here's a graph of China's carbon emissions.
Now, China's still industrializing so obviously it's expected that their emissions will be skyrocketing at the moment. I'm just wondering what she's talking about given that those two graphs show one country with rapidly declining carbon emissions and one country where carbon emissions have spiked...and it's pretty much the opposite of what she's arguing.
Why are you providing graphs to prove a point that was conceded in the quote?
Buenos tardes muchachos y muchachas.