City Pawn Shop

02-04-02 Gun Buyback at Precinct Station,
Detroit, Michigan
Originally uploaded by cm_e

Oh, yes, again. The city of Buffalo has decided that the most effective way to get weapons "off the streets" is to offer to buy them.

Well, no, that's not quite right.

Buffalo’s police commissioner wryly stated that he doesn’t expect many criminals to be lining up outside seven local churches Sept. 27 to turn in their weapons for prepaid cash cards.

“But it’s a beginning,” [Maura] Evans [mother of a teenager killed by a stray gunshot] said of the buyback. “We have to start somewhere, so why not start here. If even one gun is taken of the street, it’s worth it.”

Really? The city has budgeted $50,000 for this program. $50,000 for one gun is worth it? Must be a hell of a gun.

But it's all right, it's not costing the city $50,000. That money comes from assets forfeited through seizures from drug investigations and other crimes. And we all know that never goes wrong.

“If you see a weapon that a loved one has that you know is illegal, Sept. 27 is the day to bring these guns in,” [Mayor Byron W.] Brown said.

So, if your son killed his ho's pimp, turn in his gun. Get a little walking-around money for yourself and ensure the weapon will never show up as evidence in a trial. It's a win-win!

Am I exaggerating? Overreacting? This is a "no questions asked" buyback. None of the 878 weapons they got the last time they did this were ever checked. They might be stolen property. They might be murder weapons. Who knows? You couldn't ask for a better way to dispose of evidence: Sell it back to the police and let them destroy it.

Gun buybacks fail logic in every way conceivable.

Here, there, and everywhere

pink AK-47
Originally uploaded by pinkrifledotcom.

Gun Marketers Sez: "Pink Is For Girls." (Original story at Ananova.)

Yahoo News: Forty percent of Americans have never lived when there wasn't a Bush or a Clinton in the White House.

Reuters: Advertisers aiming to reach high-flyers with no alternative distraction will soon have a new method: adverts the size of three football pitches seen by plane passengers coming in to land.

...Paul Jenkins, managing director of Ad-Air, said the adverts would appear in "clutter-free environments and moments free of any other commercial messages."

He sounds like he thinks this is a good thing.

I wonder where they found otherwise-undeveloped five-acre plots close enough to major airports to bother. Specifically, I wonder where the proposed Atlanta ad is.

On the plus side, you can't see it while you're stranded on the tarmac.

Ridley Scott Has Finally Created the Blade Runner He Always Imagined.

Consumerist: DirecTV is making automated calls to their Do Not Call List subscribers, offering them the option to reverse their decision.

We initiated this recent do-not-call update campaign in order to make sure that information about our customers' preferences is up to date and accurately reflects our customers' wishes. We have found that a customer who at one time requested to be put on our internal do-not-call list may later decide that he or she would like to receive information from us about a variety of things.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

What is the Monkeysphere?

Jim Nabors, perhaps best known as his loveable, often-bumbling character Gomer Pyle from the hit CBS television show “Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C.,” was promoted to Honorary Corporal in a sunset ceremony held at Fort DeRussy in Waikiki Sept. 25.

Bad Headline, Good News

Bookstore assailant gets shelved
CARLISLE -- When a would-be robber walked into Erin Moul's used-book store and demanded that she open the cash register, she told him, "no."
When the man persisted on Tuesday, she showed him why she wasn't going to open it -- the 9mm pistol she pulled from her purse.

This is the kind of encounter that simply doesn't get counted when the gun control crowd is advocating the abolition of the second amendment.

If you should happen to find yourself in Cover to Cover Books in Carlisle PA, buy one. Buy several. Good deeds should be rewarded.