Mandatory Gun Buybacks

Argumentum ad populum
In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum is a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition must be true because many or most people believe it, often concisely encapsulated as: "If many believe so, it is so."

Poll manipulation.
https://thefederalist.com/2015/12/28/how-polls-manipulate-voters-no-matter-the-results/

In short, their polls aren’t very accurate and are meant to sway.

If someone asked me if I'd support any law that would mean an immediate end to all violent crime, I'd support it, too. The key to poll results is proper manipulation of the respondent by the wording of the questions.

Polls were probably once a valuable political tool. I wonder if a significant proportion of the voting public still has any faith in their accuracy?

When polling results please me, I'm influenced enough to wish it were true, but not enough to count on it.

To be able to satisfy their curiosity about what the public really thinks, a pollster would have to be willing to give up any attempts to influence them. Could anyone resist the temptation?

Probably polling really does still have some influence. If pollsters ever did come to the conclusion that the only thing they could hope to accomplish was to discover public opinion, they'd all quit. They just wouldn't care that much about the information, especially if it were something they found reprehensible.

Fair market value for the guns on mandatory buy back? I think not. They would give you a $100.00 gift certificate to Starbucks for a $1800.00 dollar gun. Not a good deal in my book.

40-82 said:

Polls were probably once a valuable political tool. I wonder if a significant proportion of the voting public still has any faith in their accuracy?

When polling results please me, I'm influenced enough to wish it were true, but not enough to count on it.

To be able to satisfy their curiosity about what the public really thinks, a pollster would have to be willing to give up any attempts to influence them. Could anyone resist the temptation?
?
Probably polling really does still have some influence. If pollsters ever did come to the conclusion that the only thing they could hope to accomplish was to discover public opinion, they'd all quit. They just wouldn't care that much about the information, especially if it were something they found reprehensible.

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I agree with what you write on polls/polling.

As for mandatory gun buybacks.....I consider that very deep water. I know people who just would not do that or if they did, it would for sure have to be mandatory. I have a couple of spur-of-the-moment purchased guns that I would be really happy for them to buyback but mandatory? I don't like the sound of that. We are mandated enough, in my opinion.

Didn't Australia do a mandatory gun buyback?

It is all part of The Big Lie.

How can you buy back something you never owned first?

The big issue I see with the concept of a buy-back is this:

People don't hand over their weapons. Some in protest, some in a fear of what is to come next from an over-reaching government.

And as the years roll by, and the weight of consequences for having a now "illegal" weapon starts to get heavy in the minds of otherwise law abiding citizens - who have too much to lose - those weapons will slowly get sold off on the private market (black market). Who's going to buy illegal weapons? The very people who society has already decided should not have access to them.

SharpDog said:

I was reading this article which states that a recent Rasmussen poll shows 51% of Americans support a mandatory gun buyback:

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MedWheeler said:

The key to poll results is proper manipulation of the respondent by the wording of the questions.

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Exactly. If a simple change was made to the question, substituting "confiscation" for "buyback," support would plummet.

SharpDog said:

So, if the response to a mandatory gun buyback is to buy more guns, either

1. The buyers expect to make money by reselling them back to the gov't, or
2. These people have zero intention of turning them in.

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Nobody is foolish enough to think that the government would pay more than the current market value of the guns. Therefore, the thinking must be that this is a "final opportunity" to buy the guns that they want. That same thinking was behind all the panic buying of the last few years. If the antigunners actually succeed in enacting a ban, they will create a huge underground market that will put alcohol Prohibition to shame.

Other than my belief in the very obvious, having a gun makes me feel secure so why would I relinquish it? Lots of people in this country hunt for sport and lots of people hunt for food or sport and food. I don't, but I cannot imagine taking that away.

When I grew up, I think that all households had a gun but didn't necessarily mention it. It was there, if needed. I'm not talking shotguns or rifles, people didn't even consider them guns where I came from. They were pretty much a life's staple.

Times are changing. Sometimes, in conversation with people I've known a good while, I am shocked at their newly acquired attitude on politics and world-view. So very different from mine. One would hardly imagine that we danced with each other and shared dreams of a future.

Picture yourself 40 years ago. Now try to imagine the discussions, behaviors, actions and laws that are in place today and pretend you are having a conversation about them forty years ago. You would have been locked up for being insane. The speed at which our country has lost it is amazing.

Our forefathers knew it. It was for this reason, for what is beginning to happen today, that they created a Democratic Republic, you know with a Constitution and a Bill of Rights. What they did not figure on is that politicians one day would not care about the Rule of Law and just do what ever the hell they want. And that my friends, is why the came up with the Second Amendment, just in case government said "We are doing what we want. Quite brilliant if you think about it.

Pete

Here's one of many, many problems with "buy backs." People buy things because they are worth more to the person than the price they are paying. Otherwise, they'd keep their cash and buy something else.

We have no way of knowing how much each purchased gun is worth to the current owner, but, presumably, we know that their previous purchase price is the floor of that value (barring regret or damage/wear).

In the context of a functioning market, this isn't a huge deal. Someone who is forced to sell a particular copy of a fungible item can go replace it on the market... thus, whatever is the "fair market value" of that item is a fair amount to give. Not because it approximates what the forced seller has lost, but because it equips them to get back to where they were from a utility perspective.

But when a buyback is combined with shutting down the market, there's no "fair market value." There's only loss that is partially offset by some cash.

peterk1234 said:

Picture yourself 40 years ago. Now try to imagine the discussions, behaviors, actions and laws that are in place today and pretend you are having a conversation about them forty years ago. You would have been locked up for being insane. The speed at which our country has lost it is amazing.

Our forefathers knew it. It was for this reason, for what is beginning to happen today, that they created a Democratic Republic, you know with a Constitution and a Bill of Rights. What they did not figure on is that politicians one day would not care about the Rule of Law and just do what ever the hell they want. And that my friends, is why the came up with the Second Amendment, just in case government said "F$%k it, we are doing what we want. Quite brilliant if you think about it.

Pete

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The Framers were quite well aware of what evils that political leaders can get up to and you can tell in their debates. As Franklin said when someone asked him what sort of government was going to come out of the Convention and replied "a republic if you can keep it". They were well aware that their political theory required a virtuous people for a republic to last and when the voters figured that they could vote themselves rich and vote themselves utopia, it would all come crashing down. Monarchs and despots are the destiny of a degenerate people because anarchy/warlordism usually results when aristos or oligarchs try to take power as the first tactic they will employ is divide and conquer. Only a very mild aristocracy is very stable which has been historically rare because someone always wants the brass ring of power.

Human nature has not changed much and if you look back through history, you will find similar periods of degeneracy and idiocy usually caused by some people believing that they can become as gods and defy nature. These periods always end with deaths, desolation, impoverishment, and tears among the population and usually not so pleasant results for the leaders that pushed folly over wisdom and vice over virtue.

Our Gov't has gone totally insane. The image being portrayed of white, christian, conservative males is meant to instill fear into the general public into thinking that we are all just ticking time bombs just waiting to go off. Kind of like 2001-2002 when a huge portion of the country was totally on board to go to the middle east to "fight terrorism", people weren't shamed for their islamophobia until years later with the war already well under way. The media had a huge part in making people associate muslims with terrorists, just like now they want it planted in everyone's mind that white conservative christian males are a public safety hazard and we need to "buy back' all those "weapons of war" for everyone's safety.

I wouldn't pick cotton in Mississippi without pay just because some strangers thought I should.

The same applies to allowing my AR15 to be stolen.

NO, I REFUSE.

Not only how the question is framed affects the answer the area where you poll will have an effect on the answers. Poll in San Francisco on a conservative subject and you know what the answer will be. Polls have no credibility.

"Buyback" is a misnomer. What we are really talking about is confiscation with compensation, which, I suppose, is better than confiscation without compensation.

If this is a 5th Amendment "taking," the measure of compensation is the fair market value immediately before the government action. If the government had to pay FMV for every "assault weapon" in the country, it would bust the budget. The government would have to raise taxes, or else print the money (which would result in massive inflation). These alternatives are politically unacceptable.

Therefore, the government would do everything it could for this not to be a 5th Amendment "taking." It could just declare the guns to be "public nuisances" and simply ban them. (The bump stock ban provides the perfect prototype.)

So, to recap, a "buyback" or "compensated confiscation" as actually optimistic on the part of gun owners. The reality would be much worse.

But the compliance rate would be abysmal. This would set the stage for social disruption worse than that during alcohol Prohibition.

BSA1 said:

It is all part of The Big Lie.

How can you buy back something you never owned first?

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Beat me to it.

It is still unconstitutional

AlexanderA said:

"Buyback" is a misnomer. What we are really talking about is confiscation with compensation, which, I suppose, is better than confiscation without compensation.

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But "compensation" determined by WHOM? The owner or the wouldbe thieves?

My AR and two uppers are worth $100,000,000 to me. Each magazine $20,000,000.

And I won't take a penny less.

AlexanderA said:

But the compliance rate would be abysmal. This would set the stage for social disruption worse than that during alcohol Prohibition.

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I think it would be more like the Revolution in the Carolinas, the Indian Mutiny, "Burning Kansas", the Indian wars, the "Troubles" in Ireland, and the Jewish resistance against the Germans in Belarus combined.

Polls are useless for gauging the real wishes of the people.
Ask the same poll to the American Rifleman readers and what do you think the results will say?
Didn't all the polls predict Hillary would win by a landslide?
Polls are useless.
They have no credibility.

Deanimator said:

But "compensation" determined by WHOM? The owner or the wouldbe thieves?

My AR and two uppers are worth $100,000,000 to me. Each magazine $20,000,000.

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Is your life really worth that little to you?

Ask the Jews, who gave up their guns. Or current day Venezuelans, who gave up theirs. They're now getting shot in the street, because they're starving. For all I know they might even be getting shot by the guns they "gave back".

Perhaps if they didn't surrender their guns in the first place, they wouldn't be facing death due to starvation or being shot. Isn't that the point?

They can poll themselves to tears which is nothing compared to the rancor we feel in our hearts whenever a bureaucrat discusses a desire to take our freedoms. Sweep away all the polling and political bafflegap and the population is left with a single message with variations on the theme: you're a loathsome bastard not to be trusted. Your government will decide your personal values. We tell you what is right and what is wrong and we will impose that on you at whatever cost necessary. If you don't bend ...you're a bad American, an outlaw, a criminal ...and they tried this years ago only to realize that an armed society will never have to accept a ruler's ruthless dictates unless they elect to do so. The tyrants in Congress were Wayne Bidwell Wheeler and Andrew John Volstead. I know their names because my grandfather used them as curse words. When he returned from France in WWI, he faced a hard reality, the farm on which he was raised could no longer support the family, there were no jobs, and when he applied for his back pay for military service -- he was given a Federal IOU ...and told his earned income was pending. Then came the hand of God, there was great news right around the corner, created by the very government that had caused all the problems.

Just as they stiffed America's combat veterans, they gave the country the Volstead Act (Prohibition), that came into force at midnight on January 17, 1920. By years end more than half the county was producing harvests for beer and whiskey and soon factory operations began, enterprises that were run like military operations because that's all the management they knew. When Prohibition ended after 13 years, my grandmother told us the old man sat at his balcony reading a stack of morning newspapers with that announcement and crying like a baby, she was concerned enough to send for a doctor. His balcony was in the governor's mansion on the second floor where his office was. He wasn't the governor. In fact he hated politicians. He had merely bought the house from that state as they slowly went bankrupt. The results of that attempted federal tyranny can be seen today in labels like Old No. 7, Single Barrel, Maryland Gold, Tennessee Fire, National Beer, Jack Daniels...

Just like today, Washington was being run by madness. They blamed failing marriages on whiskey.

They say legal gun owners in this country have over 200 million guns and 12 trillion rounds of ammo. If we were really the problem, think the world would know it?

BSA1 said:

It is all part of The Big Lie.

How can you buy back something you never owned first?

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Simple. The people in favor of the buy backs are communists. There is no such thing as private property. Everything is owned by the state. Or in other words, them. In their minds they already own your guns, and everything else that you have. They are just generous enough to let you hold on to your things sometimes. Ever notice how they always refer to tax cuts as "giving money to the rich"? They think of tax cuts as giving you more of their money, not them taking less of yours. All of the money is already theirs and you are allowed to have some of it as long as you meet the right conditions. Same for guns. Mandatory buy back makes perfect sense to them because none of them were ever really yours in in the first place.