Now that people know that parts from guns turned in at buybacks are being resold, they’re losing their minds.
Of course, all this generally does is provide a lower-cost alternative to buying brand new parts for those looking to build guns at home, but since the people losing their minds also don’t like people doing that, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised at the hysterics.
While the media is as anti-gun as it gets, they’re the one entity I refuse to give that pass to. After all, they’re responsible for sharing information with the general public. While alarmism might be warranted in some cases, this ain’t one of them.
Especially when they’re blatantly misrepresenting what happens.
Take this story as a prime example of how either ignorance or stupidity is driving the misrepresentations of what transpired.
Over the past five years, 15 law enforcement agencies in northern Texas have been shipping guns to Gulf Coast GunBusters so they can be destroyed. The company offers free gun disposal services for law enforcement agencies.
Most of the guns were confiscated during criminal investigations or dropped off as part of a gun buyback program.
Since 2019, at least 2,600 guns have been sent to the Louisiana-based company for disposal.
However, the company didn’t completely destroy the guns. Instead, they disassembled the guns and destroyed only the lower receiver. They then took the remaining parts and sold them online as gun repair kits, which do not require a background check to purchase.
Except, they did destroy the guns.
See, a gun is really just a collection of parts. Without all the required parts, you don’t have a firearm. So, one part had to be deemed as the essential part of the firearm, the one that constitutes a gun in the eyes of the law. That part is the lower receiver because without it, nothing can work and there’s nothing to attach any other part to.
But as noted above, the lower receivers–in other words, the actual gun–were destroyed.
What’s left is a collection of parts that aren’t a firearm.
That’s also why they can be sold without a background check. Literally anyone can buy them because they’re not a gun.
Yet on the same token, someone can have a lower receiver, no other parts, and be legally in possession of a firearm.
That’s a distinction that’s missing from most of these media reports. Is it because the reporters are clueless or is it because they’re malicious? Are they just ignorant of how firearm laws work in this instance or are they simply hoping to gin up outrage over the practice?
It doesn’t really matter. If the outrage forces change, law enforcement won’t get a free pass on gun turn-ins. The fact that companies offered this free service was predicated on being able to sell the parts. They didn’t do it out of the goodness of their hearts. They have families to feed and employees to pay. That money’s got to come from somewhere.
So now everyone’s getting bent out of shape because non-guns are being sold after the actual gun is destroyed, all because they’re too clueless and too biased to actually recognize that nothing untoward is happening here.
