Brooklyn Gun Buy...Irony of Ironies...

Here I am trying to get some cash together so I can legally buy a new gun, and I am presented with a dilemma. Should I stick to my ethics and do it the right way, or should I partake in the gun buy back. I have a couple of old clunkers I have been trying to sell, one is a Mosin Nagant M44 for which I have been asking $75.00 and would probably accept $50.00, and the other is a J.C. Higgins bolt action rifle in .22LR,, I forget the model number - something in the 40s. I am asking $125 for it. The dilemma is this - I can hold onto them and have it take a long time to sell them legally because they are of little collector interest, or I can drive into Brooklyn in NYC today and turn them in to an "illegal" Gun Buy Back Program and receive a $200 Bank card, no question asked, for each of them. You add it up.

On the one hand I can get $400 for two rifles for which I am having a hard time selling for a total asking price of $200, let along what I would accept. On the other hand I have some morals and live by some ethics. It would be outright dishonest of me to claim that these guns are illegal, yet the buy back program is a "no questions asked" sort of a thing. Well that is it would be dishonest of me to claim them as being illegal here where I live, but I do not live in NYC. If I drive the short distance into the city though, at least one of them, the Mosin Nagant, with its attached bayonet, would be considered illegal. Think of it, I could get $200 for a rifle for which I probably would accept $50, and for which I would be happy to get $75.00! Fuck those assholes I am truly disappointed in the wizards at the NYPD who figured out not only this great way to tempt legal gun owners like me, but also how to waste the taxpayers' dollars by buying a bunch of guns for much more than they are worth. In addition they will make a big stink about how they get maybe a couple of hundred guns off of the streets, and guess what - the criminal element will only steal or illegally buy, or illegally manufacture more of them, and this effort will not reduce gun crime by any great amount. What will reduce gun crime is arming the average citizen and allowing that citizen to defend him or herself.

As for me, the choice is tough clear. (yes of course it is clear, clear as crystal). I cannot bring myself to do something that would:

1) Be as dishonest as this

2) Probably result in an investigation not of the firearms I turned in. Yes there are no questions asked, but do you think the police will not be checking serial numbers, then going to investigate whom they believe to be the legitimate owner of the gun to determine how the gun wound up at the buy back. I could just imagine the knock on my door, the police asking me all sorts of questions about if the gun had been sold by me or stolen from me. How would I explain I turned it in for the cash?

3) Turning in a perfectly operable firearm, a legally owned one at that, to have it eventually destroyed by the government.

4) Placing a feather into the cap of the Bloomberg Tyranny by way of giving them one, or two, additional gun(s) to have counted in their media attention seeking anti-gun drive.

5) Ruining the chance of some other firearms enthusiast and U.S. Citizen, or legal resident alien, to own one of these fine firearms. Yes not very collectible, but fine firearms nevertheless. They are both great shooters, and lots of fun, and if that is not 'fine' I do not know what could be.

6) It is a waste of tax payer dollars, an extravagant waste of tax payer dollars, and I am a tax payer who pays to much in taxes to support moronic programs like this one.

So as it turns out, I will do my chores around the house. Of course I may call the NYPD and ask if they will also accept, and pay for,legally owned firearms. That could change how I look at things a bit; but my guess is that I will still keep the guns. Why - well because of reasons 3, 4, 5 and 6 above. Man it pisses me off big-time that they are wasting tax dollars like this.

The only thing I can think of that would make me smile about this whole buy back deal would be if some thugs showed up at one or more of the buy back centers, then stole all of the bought back firearms, of course without injuring anyone; and then for a law abiding Joe Regular Guy legally armed citizen to capture the bad guys and seize the guns. Sure the guns would still wind up being destroyed but think of how that would make Bloomberg look. It would help assure that a tyrant a politician like Bloomberg would never again be elected; and that such programs would be frowned upon. Of course I am not wishing for that, nor suggesting anyone try it (the theft that is), and I certainly do not condone it, but there certainly would be a bit of satisfaction in seeing the program fail that miserably.

All the best,
Glenn B

I Knew It Was Going To Be A Bad One...

...when I left my house at 0545 for work this morning, and by about 0630 it was a lot darker out than it had been when I left home. I had to pull off of the highway as I headed into a surveillance site in Brooklyn the wind was blowing so hard and the rain coming down in sheets so thick it looked as if someone had smeared about a 1/4 inch of petroleum jelly over my windshield. I will say this though, the lightning and thunder put on one heck of a show. I have not been that rattled by thunder in many a year, and I mean not rattled as in afraid, but rattled as in vibrated by the power of it, and I was inside my car when it did so. Lightning and thunder simultaneously coming from at least 4 different directions all around me within split seconds of each other. This went on for about an hour of my drive, a drive that normally would take about an hour and I had only gone about 1/3 the way in the time. Still some peckerwoods (no better description) were doing about 60 or 70 in the thick of it. I waited for it to slow down quite a bit, only about 10 or 15 minutes of waiting) before I drove on, and I still got there on time.

When I arrived on scene for our surveillance, we found a few different neighborhoods in Brooklyn had been smashed. Tree limbs and trees down all over the place, and big ones at that. Cars and trucks smashed by those trees, houses missing siding and roofs, windows smashed, business signs on the streets. Not a thing that usually happens in Brooklyn, and plenty of people were saying a tornado had touched down. Well this evening, when I was driving home at about 1900 (7PM, and yes it had been a long day), I heard on the news radio that a tornado did indeed touch down at several locations right in the area in which we later did our surveillance.

I guess that means my mother's prediction, of many years ago (probably back when I was not yet a teenager), came true. She said back then that we were having tornadoes in the USA in places where we had never had them before, and she predicted that it would get to the point where we would have them in New York. It has happened a few times now in New York State, and less in NYC - but it has come to pass. I don't think my mom gives Al Gore much credence on his stance on global warming, so maybe we are safe on that one; but as for tornadoes - watch out.

All the best,
Glenn B