Yesterday there was a gun buy-back program in Austin.

Of course, it’s being hailed as a massive success.

“The line is very shocking to me. We had people in the parking lot at 7:30 a.m. waiting to turn their guns in, and the event did not start until 9 a.m,” APD’s Sgt. Ely Reyes said.

Department officials ran out of grocery vouchers after about two and a half hours.

APD asked the community to turn in any gun, no questions asked. In exchange, people got anywhere from $10 to $200 in grocery store gift cards.

The $200 went for “assault rifles”. You know what? If you have an AK or AR and only got $200 for it? You got ripped off. When new AR’s sell for over $1000, you could have sold that used AR and made a lot more money… and gotten cash instead of just grocery gift cards.

“People like me who don’t use them, haven’t taken them out of the case for 25 years. If my house was broken into and stolen then they could be used against somebody else or for a crime,” participant Laurie Delong said.

So they didn’t actually take any guns “off the street”, they just took some old guns out of people’s closets. Again, I bet most of those guns could have been sold to dealers or private citizens and you would have fetched a lot more for your money. And the same end result would have happened: out of your house and into the hands of law-abiding people where they wouldn’t have been used against someone else or for a crime.

So 320 guns were collected and it’s a massive success.

You know how it actually can be measured if it’s a success or not? If it makes any sort of measurable impact in crime reduction in Austin. These groups put these things on as some sort of street-corner proselytizing towards crime prevention. Makes for good headlines, makes for good photo-ops, and makes some people feel better about themselves like they’re “doing something”. But until we can see it actually doing what it’s supposed to do — reducing the incidents of violent crime — then it’s nothing but a meaningless song and dance.