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Comment by zerocrates | Hacker News Reader

Man, I had no idea people were so hostile to gun buybacks.

Really?

I've literally parked outside a police station in the past with a sign saying "I buy guns for cash". The PD was paying $50-100; I spent about $500 total and ended up with several nice rifles that were inherited by people who knew didn't want them and had no idea of their value.

To be clear, while I paid much less than retail value for them I showed them price comparisons online while talking to them. Some people decided to keep them, some decided to sell to a dealer later, and some people were happy to get $50 more than the police would have given them.

The highlight of that day was an older lady that had a beautiful Mauser 98k that her husband had brought back after fighting in WW2. She said she needed the money and honestly thought the $100 gift card the police department offered was fair. We exchanged numbers and she ended up selling it to a dealer for $900.

> The highlight of that day was an older lady that had a beautiful Mauser 98k that her husband had brought back after fighting in WW2. She said she needed the money and honestly thought the $100 gift card the police department offered was fair. We exchanged numbers and she ended up selling it to a dealer for $900.

This is the aspect of gun buybacks that really rubs me wrong. They take advantage of ignorant and desperate people by not paying the fair market value of the guns. Old widows regularly get scammed out of thousands of dollars by these cops.

Incidentally, paying fair market value for the guns is also the solution to people trying to sell 3d printed crap. Offer them the pennies a plastic recycler might offer for it.

They are awful and do nothing except waste taxpayer money. If you want to really want to get rid of a gun, you get much more for your money by selling it to a gun store. It can also lead to the destruction of historically interesting guns. Luckily, in this respect, some states such as Arizona which prohibits the state and local governments from destroying firearms. So we they don't do "buybacks" here anymore.

The very term is a lie. These guns were almost surely never owned by the government, so it is not buying anything back. Guns do not belong to the government by default. The word has also been used to describe involuntary confiscation of weapons, which many people who value their rights would oppose in the strongest terms.

In addition, guns have value to people for more than functionality. There's endless stories of people selling "back" their grandpa's WW2 take back piece that would be worth thousands of dollars to the right collector and would be restored and enjoyed for decades, only for a police officer to at best "lose" it in transport or more likely send it to be melted down for scrap so someone could get a $50 gift card and local police can post to Twitter about how another dangerous war relic is off the streets.

Buyback as in you bought it from somewhere, and the government buys it from you. Buyback doesn't, to me anyway, imply that the government sold it to you in the first place.

Your notion of the word doesn't match the definition :

NOUN buyback (noun) the buying back of goods by the original seller. the buying back by a company of its own shares. a form of borrowing in which shares or bonds are sold with an agreement to repurchase them at a later date: "a share buy-back" synonyms: retrieve · regain · recover · get back · reclaim · repossess

Other dictionaries include broader definitions. American heritage dictionary specifically includes a “government program to incentivize something” definition. Googling buyback brings the top hit of a company that will buy your used electronics.

Well, no matter your personal definition I stand by my response illustrating why some people are very hostile to so-called gun buybacks.

> Buyback as in you bought it from somewhere, and the government buys it from you.

That's simply "buying".

Sure, but a “government gun buying program” sounds like they’re starting their own collection.

"buy back" doesn't imply destroy. If I sell something to you then buy it back from you, there is no implication that I subsequently destroy whatever it was.

Your position in this whole sub-thread is very odd.

My position is whatever you think of gov “buyback” programs, the name being misleading isn’t a valid criticism. Nobody thinks the implication is the government sold you the gun in the first place. Sure, it’s a slightly irregular use of the term “buyback”, but governments and corporations and people use language irregularly all the time and it means very little.

Far from hostile, he seems like their biggest fan and number one contributor.

I'm less hostile to them now that I know they can make me rich :)

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