Professor Calls for National Gun 'Buyback'

The anti-gun lie that gun-ban advocates “don’t want to take anyone’s guns away from them” is just that—a lie.

While most anti-gunners are able to help keep that thinly veiled secret by carefully not mentioning their eventual end goal when on the public stage, occasionally a gun-ban advocate will be remarkably candid in calling for guns in the hands of lawful citizens to be taken by the government.

Such is the case with University of Miami political professor Gregory Koger. In an op-ed published recently at Washingtonmonthly.com, Koger attempts to make the case for what he calls a “national gun buyback program” funded by—you guessed it—lawful gun owners.

“… it could be time for a new approach to America’s gun problem: a national gun buyback program, paid for by higher excise taxes on gun purchases.”

In Koger’s opinion, regulatory schemes—which we see pushed day in and day out—aren’t working to curb violent crime. On that we can likely all agree. However, his solution is far from a good one.

“As an alternative to regulatory gun control measures, I’m proposing a gun buyback program in which the purchase price is tied to each weapon’s market value and the likelihood of its being used in criminal activity,” Koger wrote. “To finance the program, Congress should increase excise taxes on firearms, ammunition and selected tactical gear such as body armor. The federal government already levies about a 10 percent tax on firearms and ammunition. Under my proposal, these taxes would be increased significantly, though not so high as to be prohibitive and trigger court challenges.”

Here, Koger shows a distinct lack of understanding concerning lawful gun owners’ willingness to go to court to fight further taxation of a natural right protected by the Constitution. And his scheme doesn’t stop there.

“To go further, Congress could potentially apply a progressive tax based on how dangerous a weapon is, like placing a higher tax on an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle than a historic flintlock rifle,” he wrote.

In the end, Koger concludes by acknowledging the anti-gun end game—getting “guns off the street”—which also means out of your home, vehicle and holster.

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“… a buyback offers a peaceful, legal way to get guns off the street, and that might prove more than a little persuasive to wavering Democrats when other alternatives seem like dead ends.”

Of course, since only law-abiding citizens can purchase a firearm from a dealer through the FBI’s so-called Instant Check system and dealer sales is what would be taxed, Koger’s scheme would have you paying for the government to purchase your firearms from you. Talk about “cutting out the middleman”!

In the end, the plan for a national gun buyback has plenty of faults before we even get to our last two important points.

First, buybacks have been proven to be completely ineffective. A paper titled “Have U.S. Gun Buyback Programs Misfired,” authored by Toshio Ferrazares, Joseph J. Sabia and D. Mark Anderson, and published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, concluded that such “buybacks” have no measurable impact on reducing violent crime.

“Given our estimated null findings, with 95 percent confidence, we can rule out decreases in firearm-related crime of greater than 1.3 percent during the year following a buyback,” the abstract concluded. “Using data from the National Vital Statistics System, we also find no evidence that GBPs reduce suicides or homicides where a firearm was involved.”

Additionally, since the U.S. government never owned our guns, it’s impossible for them to “buy them back.”

In truth, so-called “buybacks” are nothing more than compensated confiscation. And if they are mandatory, they are forced compensated confiscation. It’s high time that gun-ban advocates like Koger call them what they really are.

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About the Author

Freelance writer and editor Mark Chesnut is the owner/editorial director at Red Setter Communications LLC. An avid hunter, shooter and political observer, he has been covering Second Amendment issues and politics on a near-daily basis for more than 20 years.