I read Joe Nocera’s article “Notes from a Gun Buyback” in the New York Times today regarding a gun buyback and amnesty program in Newark that essentially put into action a plan I outlined in my earlier post “Let’s Complicate the Killing Spree–Buy the Killers’ Guns.”  Nocera writes that critics of the buyback plan claim it only eliminates guns that would have never been used in a crime anyway. That got me to thinking about what type of person would actually make use of a “sell your gun to the government so they can destroy it” program and the type of person likely to use a gun to commit a crime. Here’s what I came up with:

Unlikely to Sell Guns to a Buyback Program:

• Gun Collectors would not sell their collections knowing the guns would be destroyed.
• Active Hunters would not sell guns they may want to use. They also wouldn’t sell at a discount to the government when other hunters and collectors will pay full price.
• The Anti Anti-Gun Crowd would not sell their guns to any program they see as an affront to our 2nd Amendment rights.
• The Cold-Dead-Hand Crowd would never sell their guns to the government, period.
• Responsible Gun Owners legally purchase, register, maintain, and ensure safe storage of their guns–and they own guns for a reason. Why would a responsible gun owner suddenly decide that protecting their home is no longer important?

Likely to Sell Guns to a Buyback Program:

• Fiscally Irresponsible People would sell their guns on Tuesday for hamburgers today.
• Impulsive People bought their guns on a whim so why wouldn’t they also sell them on a whim?
• Drug Addicts always need their next fix but they aren’t stupid. Why would they commit a high-risk crime like armed robbery for $50 when they could sell their gun for $500 at zero risk? Also, aren’t drug addicts going to be more worried about their next hit than what will happen on the eleventh hit when they are no longer able to commit armed robbery?
• Thieves steal things and sell them. Who are they selling them to? I guarantee they would jump on the prospect of getting more cash at zero risk than being gouged by a fence or jacked when they try to sell to another criminal.
• Desperate People. What’s the prime driving force behind most desperation and crime? Money. Paying desperate people for their guns decreases their desperation a bit while eliminating tools that are very dangerous in the hands of desperate people.
• Troubled Youth may enjoy swiping their parents’ guns and shooting at signs but I imagine they would also enjoy selling their parents’ guns and buying some weed. So what type of parents would have their troubled children selling their guns for weed? You got it–
• Irresponsible Gun Owners, although in a more indirect manner. Gun owners that have troubled, desperate, thieving, fiscally irresponsible, drug addict children with access to their guns are no longer responsible gun owners. If their kids can take their guns and sell them they probably shouldn’t have owned guns in the first place.

And here’s the big one–the irrefutable iron-clad group of people that got me writing this post in the first place. Drum roll please…

• Gun Owners that never wanted the guns they currently own! The widower that had a gun-loving spouse. The woman whose ex-husband left a box of guns in the closet. And, most importantly, the man that just inherited twenty guns from his deceased father. Without a gun buyback program, what do we think will happen to those twenty inherited guns? Yep–they’re getting sold. Twenty guns will be sold to a friend, or a friend of a friend, or a pawn shop, or a gun dealer, or on Ebay, or on Craigslist. Then they will be sold again, and again, and with every sale those guns wind up in different hands. Almost all of those hands will be unknown and almost all of those transactions will be invisible. The one thing we will  know about many of those transactions, though, is that the current hands on those guns belong to people who actually buy guns on Craigslist, or Ebay, or from a friend of a friend, and who have no problem making that type of private transaction. Do we really want guns trickling down from responsible but deceased gun owners to inheritors that want to sell them to buyers that prefer private transactions? I don’t think so.

The critics claiming gun buyback programs are ineffective, because they are only destroying legal guns that would never be used in a crime anyway, are just plain wrong. To be correct they would need to prove that a gun acquired through government buyback has never come from the hands of a person on my “Likely to Sell” list. I say never because having just one desperate person, or troubled youth, or drug addict tossing a gun in the shredder makes the entire program a success. It does only take one. Sandy Hook is indisputable proof of the damage one person can deal.

C’mon. Let’s go make us some expensive metal shavings. Or bracelets. Jewelry For a Cause is melting guns down into bracelets.

What will happen to the Bushmaster .223 semiautomatic rifle that was used to murder twenty kindergartners in Newtown, Connecticut? How about the 10mm Glock the shooter used to absolve himself of responsibility? I imagine they will be locked away in an evidence locker—stored until storage space is at such a premium they wind up going through some industrial shredder. Regardless, those guns have fired their last bullets. And there is no Bushmaster understudy waiting in the wings to take the lead’s place. Deprived of its Glock, the cold, dead hand is not going to reach into a magic Glock-box and pull a replacement from an infinite supply. Friday morning there were X number of guns in the world. Friday night there were X minus three.

The United States is a mind-boggling cornucopia of guns and ammunition, which is not surprising when gun ownership is directly equated to freedom. This has led to heated debate as the advocates for gun control seem to directly equate freedom with not being shot. Political leanings aside though, just about everyone will agree that blood and crayons simply do not mix—and there is nothing we can do to guarantee with 100% certainty a Newtown or Columbine will never happen again. But doing something to chip away at a huge problem is still better than doing nothing.

I’m proposing an Anonymous Gun and Ammunition Buy and Destroy Amnesty Program. AGAABADAP may not have a catchy acronym but it is politics-free and will unquestionably decrease incidents of gun-related violence. It’ll go a little something like this:

Years ago, Bob bought a Glock of questionable origin from his buddy and put it in a shoebox under the bed. Bob got married. Bob had kids. Now Bob’s kids want a Wii-U that doesn’t quite fit in the family budget. Bob hears about AGAABADAP on the news. Bob wraps his Glock in pretty orange plastic-wrap and carries it to the local AGAABADAP office. Bob meets Jim, a federal government employee.

Jim says, “What have you got there?”

“A Glock,” Bob replies.

Jim unwraps the gun then runs his finger down a price-list. “$350,” Jim says.

Bob is ecstatic. “Sweet! Let’s start the paperwork.”

“No paperwork,” Jim says. “Would you like cash, money-order, or direct deposit?”

“Money order I guess,” Bob says, squinting his eyes suspiciously. “Don’t I have to sign anything?”

“Nope.”

“Aren’t you going to run a background check, verify the serial number, dust for fingerprints, look at bullet striations under a microscope or anything?” Bob asks. “I could have stolen that gun or committed a crime with it.”

“You certainly could have.” Jim hands Bob the money-order then tosses the gun into a shredder, which grinds and clunks a minute before spitting a handful of metal shavings out the other end. “Have a nice day.” Jim says. “Next!”

Bob drives to the nearest Gamestop.

Incentive. If we want to eliminate guns without trouncing our constitutional freedoms then we have to give people a compelling reason to get rid of guns on their own. And what better incentive than no-strings-attached cash coupled with anonymity?

So let’s just buy the guns. Heck, let’s buy the bullets too. We can use a sliding scale of potential death and destruction for the pricing. Grandad’s rusty old .22 rifle could only bring $50 but the woman secretly selling her creepy ex-husband’s modified AR-15 and a box of grenades may walk away with thousands. What would happen if instead of using his pistol to mug someone for $30 the junky destroys it for $300? How about if the kid that’s had just about enough sells all his mom’s guns and takes off cross-country instead of using them to go out in a blaze of highly-publicized and glorified carnage?

In my plan cash is important but anonymity is the key. When a ten-year-old walks in with a bazooka my primary concern is smashing that bazooka. Of course I’ll be curious where he got it but if the cost to destroy a bazooka is $3000 counted out into the hands of a nameless middle-schooler from who-knows-where I’ll gladly pay.

Buy and Destroy will carve out a huge chunk of the existing stockpile but we also must take into account that new guns are being manufactured every day. Since the main point of my plan is to not infringe on anyone’s freedom, the brunt of the responsibility and accountability regarding new gun purchases falls on the manufacturer and supply chain. An illegal transaction must occur before a new gun falls into the hands of a criminal or becomes “untraceable.” At some point a box of new guns has to “fall off the truck,” or the owner of a gun-shop has to sell one under the table. A requirement for better tracking of a product’s trip from manufacturer to final owner will help determine which trucking companies are losing packages and which retailers are missing guns the computer says they should have.

The Buy and Destroy program will also have positive trickle-down effects. The decrease in existing supply will result in an increase in prices. Current gun-owners will see the value of their collections increase. Manufacturers will enjoy an increase in unit sales as well as an increase in gross profit as they are able to charge more for their products. Irresponsible gun owners will be more likely to liquidate their assets to fund other irresponsible endeavors. And the plotting psychos will have to make due with fewer guns and bullets because plotting psychos are often on a pretty tight budget as it is. Imagine if the Columbine shooters had to save up their allowances an extra few months—a few months can work wonders on the pubescent mind.

So who’s going to pay? We all are. We already were. We’re just going to have to convert our currency from blood to USD. As a country we need to suck it up and accept the fact that progress is inherently hindered by beliefs and politics and math at the bottom line. But I would rather justify a seemingly insurmountable red number to my six-year-old son than try to explain how the world now has X minus twenty kids just like him.