Whipped Cream Difficulties

Identification won’t be required to turn in a weapon through Guns 4 Groceries, a program sponsored by the Austin Police Department and the Greater Austin Crime Commission that will allow police to buy guns in exchange for grocery store gift cards.

“Identification won’t be required”? That’s interesting. Whenever someone goes to sell books or CDs at Half-Price Books, they’re required to show a photo ID before the clerk will even start processing the sale. My understanding was that this was a legal requirement; does this program get a pass?

There is no limit to how many guns a person can bring in, and Acevedo assures that no questions will be asked, unless it is obvious that a weapon is stolen. He said all guns would be tested to see whether they are linked to criminal activity, and if they are, officers would investigate the case.

I assume when he says “tested” he means ballistic tests. Will they also be checking serial numbers against a list of guns reported stolen, and returning any recovered guns to the rightful owners?

A $100 gift card will be given for each handgun or rifle, and a $200 gift card will be given for each assault rifle. Even air guns, BB guns or replica guns can net $10 apiece.

How much for zip guns?

Acevedo said if the gun buyback is successful, the Police Department will look into having two a year.

Not with my tax money, you clueless bag of crap.

(In this case, I should point out, it looks like the money is coming from private donations raised by the “Greater Austin Crime Commission“, an organization I was previously unaware of, and with a web site that is less than informative. I do like this, from their “Programs” page:

“Supplying equipment to create the nation’s first K-9 chembio and radiation detection programs”.

Yeah, here’s your K-9 chembio and radiation detection programs: you send the dog in and wait five minutes. If it keels over, you don’t go in after it. This is much like AD‘s recommended procedure for dealing with chemical spills, except the K-9s don’t go through as many doughnuts.)

I’m halfway tempted to pull some money out of the bank, go down there, and offer cash money for old S&W revolvers. The only thing that’s stopping me is that other people seem to have had the same idea.

(Subject line hattip, just so people don’t accuse me of being unable to spell.)

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 at 1:47 pm and is filed under Clippings, Guns, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.