Police conduct gun swap-meet, (don’t) get what they pay for

FWIW’s New Mexico correspondent sends along this story from Baltimore, where the residents took advantage of a police “buy-back” program to get the funds to buy better guns.

Over 500 guns were surrendered to Baltimore police within the first hour and a half of a citywide gun buyback program this week. Participants received anywhere from $25 to $500 for their unwanted firearms.

Mayor Catherine Pugh and Interim Police Commissioner Gary Tuggle announced a gun buyback program—the first in six years—last week. Pugh said that the program was intended to "get the guns off of our streets."

The program reportedly cost the city $250,000, but there is little evidence that buyback programs are effective in reducing violence, or even in reducing the number of firearms in circulation—as one woman ably demonstrated.

Kathleen Cairns, a WBFF Baltimore journalist, tweeted a picture of a woman who was surrendering a 9mm. She hoped to use the money from the program to buy an even bigger gun.

The cops paid $25 for high-capacity magazines, which are available on E Bay for twelve bucks. Buy a couple of dozen, and the arbitrage is great. I myself have a Mossberg .22, purchased for me at Abercrombie and Smith fifty-five years ago by my father. It always had a lousy trigger pull, but I learned to hunt with it, Sadly neglected over the years, it’s now pitted with rust and essentially worthless, but I’m waiting for the next GPD buy back, in the hope of getting fifty bucks for it.