PA Bill Number: SB1198
Title: In plants and plant products, providing for plant and pollinator protection; conferring powers and duties on the Department of Agriculture and ...
Description: In plants and plant products, providing for plant and pollinator protection; conferring powers and duties on the Department of Agriculture and .. ...
Last Action: Referred to AGRICULTURE AND RURAL AFFAIRS
Last Action Date: May 17, 2024
Anatomy of a gun buyback program :: 02/01/2016
Charles Tassell, 46, founder of non-profit Street Rescue Inc., holds up a .22 caliber Raven with the firing mechanism taken out and serial number edged off January 14, 2016. Tassell's non-profit works to collect guns in communities that are in the wrong hands.(Photo: The Enquirer/Madison Schmidt)Buy Photo
There is no regulation of gun buybacks in Ohio.
There are no laws that determine what happens to the guns after they are collected.
Typically, the guns are destroyed in buybacks conducted by cities and police departments.
Deer Park City Councilperson Charles Tassell, who is pro-gun and holds a concealed-carry permit, didn't think that was the best way to run “Street Rescue,” his gun buyback program.
Instead, he turns in the collected guns to federally licensed firearms dealers to be sold to the right hands.
"It’s not my determination of the 'right hands,'" Tassell said. "It’s the federal government's decision."
Most of the 41 guns he collected off of the streets in Over-the-Rhine, Walnut Hills and East Westwood were handguns and pistols. He's taken many of those to shops around Cincinnati, including TargetWorld and Point Blank Range & Gun Shop.
When the guns come in, Tassell runs the serial numbers through the Deer Park Police Department. If anything is stolen, it goes back to the proper owner. If the serial number is rubbed off, then it is destroyed, per the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
“We made sure none of them were stolen, sought by law enforcement or wanted in connection with any crimes,” said Deer Park Police Chief Michael Schlie, who confirmed none of the guns from Street Rescue's buybacks were stolen.
Tassell takes the guns that are safe and can be sold again to licensed federal firearms dealers, who register them in their inventory.
“Allowing the guns to go back into the secondary markets is a much better solution than simply destroying the firearms,” said Joe Eaton, treasurer of the Buckeye Firearms Association. “It protects the historical and collectible guns and makes families safer by making less expensive firearms available to them.”
Charles Tassell, 46, Deer Park City Council member, founded the non-profit Street Rescue Inc. in September. Tassell has collected over 40 guns in communities with hidden guns on the streets in order to get these guns out of the wrong hands. (Photo: The Enquirer/Madison Schmidt)
Charles Tassell, 46, Deer Park City Council member, founded the non-profit Street Rescue Inc. in September. Tassell has collected over 40 guns in communities with hidden guns on the streets in order to get these guns out of the wrong hands. (Photo: The Enquirer/Madison Schmidt)
Eaton said many dealers would be interested because it would add to their regular business.
When the guns are sold legally from that dealership to a customer, who has passed a background check run by the ATF, Street Rescue recoups the funds to host more buybacks.
It’s an entrepreneurial approach to fixing a social issue, Tassell said.
“This is a way to sustain the program,” he said. “Functioning guns are a valuable asset that can be resold to bring funds back into our program to again get guns off the street.”
The ATF said his efforts are completely legal, even under Obama’s recent executive action to close gun background-check loopholes.
“Being engaged in the business would be the repetitive buying and selling of guns for a profit,” said Suzanne Dabkowski, public information officer for the ATF Columbus Field Division.
Dabkowski said Street Rescue is an unusual process for buybacks, but she said Tassell is not doing anything wrong.
According to Everytown for Gun Safety, people who make occasional sales for a hobby, or who sell guns from their personal collection, aren’t required to get a license.
Street Rescue, a registered nonprofit organization, is the private owner of the guns.
It’s using a dealer and not selling the guns for a profit, so it doesn’t need a federal firearms license, according to Dabkowski, who cited the U.S. Department of Justice.
The National Rifle Association has a campaign that says, “Guns in the hands of good guys.”
“You have to get them out of the hands of bad guys first,” Tassell said, “and that’s where we come in.”
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2016/01/30/anatomy-gun-buyback-program/79092386/
