PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Re-committed to APPROPRIATIONS
Last Action Date: May 6, 2024
Rochester Gun Buyback Was A Fraud -- Bob Lonsberry on NewsRadio WHAM 1180 :: 11/10/2015
The Rochester Police Department is guilty of fraud. Saturday afternoon, at a little cinder-block church just north of 490 on the westside, the department held a gun buyback.
And it was a fraud.
Against the grocery store that sponsored it, against the people who turned in guns, against the community that cowers in fear of escalating violence.
It was all a fraud.
It was a con that emanated from the mayor’s office, was organized in the chief’s office, and hid its dishonesty behind the noble badge of the Rochester Police Department.
Shame on all involved.
It had its birth with a mayor desperate to look engaged and in charge after a drive-by at the Boys and Girls Club left three dead, four wounded and the community wondering where the hell the cops were.
They were right where they are now, trussed up in the mayor’s apron strings at some community outreach meeting. After this they will be fitted with body cameras and sent to cultural sensitivity class while those who aspire to high position in the department practice apologizing and kissing ass.
As the summer got bloodier, the mayor stood up and said that she was going to confer with other mayors and hold a gun buyback, and this would fight crime.
Almost nobody laughed out loud.
Saturday was Part Two of the mayor’s Anti-Crime Initiative. Part One was a teleconference with the assistants of mayors who couldn’t be bothered to sit through her nonsensical dog-and-pony show.
But let’s get back to the issue of fraud.
When the mayor and the chief put a gun buyback forward as a means of fighting violent crime, it was a con. A fraud. A lie.
Never anywhere anytime has anyone shown any evidence whatsoever that gun buybacks reduce violence or crime.
They are a stunt, a heaping pile of crap served up to mollify people who haven’t yet caught on to the fact that politicians don’t give a damn about them.
To tell a community that gun buybacks help fight crime is to tell a cancer patient that holding tight to a crystal will cure her disease.
The mayor lied and the chief swore to it.
The con against the sponsor – Wegmans supermarkets – was the assertion that its donation of thousands of dollars worth of gift cards was going to a worthwhile cause.
It wasn’t. It was going to an ass-covering gimmick for the mayor.
Far better to have randomly handed the cards to passersby, instead of using them as bait for the third group of fraud victims.
And that was the people who turned in guns.
Though the mayor and the chief talked about “taking guns off the streets,” overwhelmingly, guns came from grama’s closet. In a city where violence is driven by young black people, the buyback took a lot of guns from old white people.
It mostly did so unnecessarily.
And dishonestly.
The guns taken in were overwhelmingly guns that were no threat to anyone, and which had legal market value far greater than the $50 or $100 gift cards the police were handing out. In some instances, just watching people interviewed on TV, it was heartbreaking to see people being duped out of family heirlooms – while the chief vomited platitudes and clichés he had to know were false.
One elderly woman stood there with her dead father’s pistol in a presentation box. By the look of the replacement cylinders, it was probably a .22. She said that she wished she could keep it, and she was sad about losing it, but he had died, and she knew she had to turn it in.
She, of course, did not have to turn it in. Though slow, there is a process whereby she could become licensed to keep her dead father’s gun. It is unconscionable that the police didn’t explain that to her.
And if she had wanted to get rid of the gun, and had taken it to a licensed gun dealer or auctioneer, she would have legally received much more in cash than she got in gift cards.
Instead, her dad’s gun will be destroyed and she will be left with a plastic card for some bread and milk.
And the cops did that.
An old woman went in to the police, the people you’re supposed to be able to trust, and she got conned.
Another press photo showed a policeman earnestly looking at a lever-action rifle at least 100 years old, also set to be destroyed, worth several times the $50 gift card somebody walked away with. The same report showed a single-action cowboy revolver, likewise destined for the scrap heap, of a type not used in a crime since the days of Wyatt Earp. It would have brought easily twice as much cash as the buyback offered in gift cards.
The people who turned in those guns got ripped off in the deal. Their guns, sold legally through a gun shop or auctioneer, were worth far more than they got. And their guns were no threat whatsoever to the community – they were not the guns of Rochester’s street violence.
It was all a fraud.
And nobody knows that better than the street officers who shake their heads in disgust and go out on another day’s patrol.
Photo via Bob Lonsberry via News 10 NBC screen shot
http://www.wham1180.com/onair/bob-lonsberry-3440/rochester-gun-buyback-was-a-fraud-14105480
