Seattle Police officers gather exchanged guns during the city's gun buyback Saturday, Jan. 26. (Photo by Joshua Trujillo/The Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
June 27, 2013
By Robert W. Hunnicutt
A political slap-fight broke out in Seattle between the city's mayor and its leading anti-gun group in the wake of a botched buyback effort in January.
Washington CeaseFire President Ralph Fascitelli was miffed that Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn didn't solicit his opinion before announcing — with great fanfare — the gun collection effort. Fascitelli raised pretty much every objection raised here and in any other gun publication or website. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer obtained emails between CeaseFire and the mayor's office that included the following complaint by Fascitelli:
"I wish you guys would have talked to us/CeaseFire about this before moving forward. The overwhelming research shows that buybacks generally don't work well and are a waste of resources and are mocked by the NRA. We will be lucky to get a few thousand or more guns back, many of which don't work too well in a country where there are almost 2 million guns."
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I'm sure he meant "county," not "country," but he certainly is right about the mocking part. What he was wrong about was the "few thousand" part. The buyback brought in a total of 716 guns at a cost of $67,000 worth of gift cards, and about $23,000 of police overtime.
For those of you keeping score at home, that's about $142 per gun, and to go by press photos of the event, the guns brought in were the usual chain-store shotguns and .22-caliber rifles these events scoop up.
Worse for McGinn, the event became a public relations fiasco when enterprising gun buyers set up around its perimeter, offering cold cash for desirable arms. When it comes to a choice between money and gift cards, cash is king.
Just to add to the PR debacle, a much-ballyhooed plan to smelt the turned-in guns into some sort of artwork came up craps too. The guns were hauled off to a steel mill and melted down with other scrap while the mayor was still touting the art plan.
It is interesting to see that even the anti-gunners are starting to see that the main effect of buybacks is to build NRA membership.
