Firing Back: Value of Seized Guns Finally Noted in MSM

Finally someone in the mainstream media has put a price on the value of those guns seized by police. According to the Jackson Sun, the Madison County Sheriff’s Department confiscated 32 guns in 2009, which were valued at $16,000. While the story discusses the pros and cons of police selling confiscated guns, this pricing is worth mention for a number of reasons.

First, how many times in the past year have we reported on police buybacks where gun owners were paid somewhere between $25 and $100 for each gun turned in. Even at the high end, 32 guns would equate to $3,200. That’s quite a ways from $16,000. So clearly people were essentially giving their guns away for a fraction of the potential value. But secondly, why haven’t more gun buy-backs then been turned into sell offs?

As this article notes, the guns could be sold to licensed gun dealers, and “criminals are not walking into licensed gun dealers to buy a gun,” notes one source in the article. Of course the article offers the counterpoint from another source that somehow believes that selling these firearms will result in the guns ending up on the street again. The former situation seems more likely to us. Law-abiding gun owners will purchase the guns, and the police can reap the benefits.

But instead, far too often we see cases of gun buybacks where the city pays a pittance, the guns are destroyed and no one benefits. Some would argue guns were taken off the street, but we should note that this is likely never the case. Why would a criminal turn in a gun for $25? No, instead the buybacks result in an owner losing out on the value, the city needlessly paying out money (that many can’t even afford) and no guns were taken off the street anyway.