Austin News Calls Gun Buyback a Success

How do judge success? Do you judge the methods or the results? Personally, we think you should only judge the results, not the methods to obtain said results. We stress this because time and time again gun buybacks are called “successful” because these “get guns off the streets.” The problem as we’ve long tried to address is that there is absolutely no proof that any gun was ever “on the streets.” And it would be impossible to tell whether a handed in gun actually might have ever been dangerous to anyone.
 
But don’t expect the mainstream media to consider this logic. Instead, various outlets report about the events and listen to the organizers who praise the efforts and call it a success. The latest is Austin News KXAN.com, which reported that 343 guns were collected during the city’s first buyback program. The news story at least did question the “results” a bit, but in a  round about way:

“Similar actions in Chicago, Los Angeles, Oakland, and Philadelphia have been successful in removing and destroying thousands of guns from the streets.”

OK, two things are clear. First the author of this story uses the word “successful” in the wrong context. What determines the success? Would the event have been a failure if only hundreds and not thousands were removed? The problem again is that to the anti-gun zealots removing even one gun is a success, regardless of whether that gun was under a bed and doing no harm to anyone. The sentence structure also has some problems, but we’ll leave the grammar policing to someone else – but we will note that there again, no proof is ever given but only suggested, that the guns were ever on the streets.

Fortunately the piece does try to offer some level reporting:

“Critics of the gun buyback programs are wary of how successful these programs truly are in terms of reducing crime. They say the people who turn in their guns are generally not involved in gun crimes, and the guns turned in are easily replaceable.”

Good points, but too often this type of reporting and commentary is only offered at the end of the story.