Kentucky flips the script on gun buyback programs & Heinlein views in Action

As you may recall, I have utter disdain for gun buyback programs.  With that being said I was greatly amused that the State of Kentucky has done a one-eighty on the idea and have begun a sell back program.

The program has been in place for 15 years now and as you can imagine, the gun control zealots are still bemoaning the “inevitability” of blood running in the streets.  Even after a decade and a half of positive results, some are still criticizing the program such as Kenton County Commonwealth Attorney Rob Sanders.

“In my experience, the guns that end up there are dangerous weapons, poorly made, often damaged or really don’t have value unless you’re looking for an inexpensive firearm.  And if you’re looking for a cheap gun, you’re usually up to no good.”

Apparently Mr. Sanders doesn’t believe that poor people have a right to protect themselves and their family against crime.  Or maybe he is speaking from a position of bigoted elitism stating that all poor people are criminals.

Fortunately, when this bill was proposed and passed in 1998,  then State Rep. Bob Damron, D-Nicholasville, didn’t let baseless and bigoted claims prevent him from moving forward with this gun sell back program.  He argued that in his rural district the police told him that they were forced to destroy firearms that were better than they were being issued.  Damron’s bill allowed the police to keep some weapons for departmental use while sending the bulk of them to the Kentucky State Police for auction.

Not surprisingly due to the political nature of the position, a number of police chiefs, nearly unanimously in Northern Kentucky opposed the measure, going so far as circumventing the law and stockpiling these weapons to avoid following the law.  In 2000 though the Kentucky Assembly amended the law requiring that the weapons be turned over for auction within 90 days.

Now though, after $7 million worth of bullet proof vests and other police needs have been funded directly by this program, the police are among its biggest supporters. Though the support isn’t universal, and you will always have the gun control zealots try to undermine the rights of the citizenry with outlandish claims and sensationalism, it seems that Kentucky is on the right path and that the gun sell back program will continue on its successful path.

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An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. -Robert Heinlein 

I’m a fan of Heinlein.  If you are uninitiated with his writing, you may be familiar with the movie Starship Troopers which was loosely based on his novel of the same name.  Heinlein was a science fiction writer who used the otherworldly landscapes to promote a libertarian philosophy.  As the above quote can attest to, Heinlein believed you are responsible for your own actions and when those actions have consequences you will act with greater care.

Why do I bring up Heinlein?  Because I detest Black Friday.  The day after Thanksgiving when people act like animals in order to get a discount on some materialistic good.  Every year you hear stories of the worst of people coming through on Black Friday, people being trampled why others do nothing to help, punches thrown over this bauble or that.

Imagine my surprise and delight when I heard about the following tale from a Sears store in San Antonio.  Being Black Friday, a long line existed heading into the store as people decide that the hours upon hours they wait in line are worth wasting in order to save a couple of bucks.  Of course, some people don’t like waiting, some people think that they can do whatever they want because everyone else are sheep and will be cowed by a dominant personality.

That is what one line cutting rude and violent man thought at least.  When the doors opened he sprinted in front of the line pushing and shoving his way to get in front of everyone.  As you can imagine some people didn’t care for his attitude or his line cutting ways and told him to go back to the end of the line.  The line cutters response was to start punching people in the face.

I can only imagine that he was bigger than the other men and women in the line so he felt confident that he would just muscle his way past those weaker than him.  What he didn’t expect, was when one man who he punched in the face responded by pulling a handgun out and pointed it at him.

Like cowards always do, the line cutting assaulter ran away and shopping continued normally.  The armed citizen will not face any charges as he had a CCW and acted right and proper in his response to the assault.

Will Mr. Face Punching Scumbag start throwing punches next time to get ahead in line?  Something tells me, probably not.  I think he got a lesson his parents neglected to give him years ago…actions have consequences.

But in an unarmed society, where the big man rules without challenge, where gangs can use muscle to oppress the weak, there are no consequences for the strong, only fallout for the weak.

 I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. -Robert Heinlein