After removing bail for 90% of cases, putting thousands of criminals back on the streets due to the pandemic, disbanding the city’s plainclothes anti-crimes unit, and demonizing police officers, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is finally ready to fight crime. And like Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, he’s blaming the guns (which mysteriously weren’t going off at this frequency a mere year ago – at least for his city).
One part of his proposal is to increase NYPD foot patrols, which comes just weeks after disbanding the city’s plainclothes patrol. Presumably, Bill de Blasio will also be allowing anti-police protests to continue as he is forced to rely on the police to combat the crime wave his other policies have helped cause. De Blasio wouldn’t provide any details for the plan, and wouldn’t say how many officers would be deployed.
Another part of his strategy is to offer gun owners money for their firearms, a proposal that practically guarantees only law abiding gun owners turn in their guns, making it a gigantic waste of money if the goal is to reduce crime.
Of the buyback, the National Shooting Sports Foundation blasted it as mere “political theater,” citing the lack of evidence that they accomplish anything besides incinerating more taxpayer dollars:
If there were any giveaway that the mayor’s firearm crime plans are unserious, it is evidenced by his gun “buy-back” program, including events in the very places where criminal gun crime is the highest. Gun buy-backs are designed to offer citizens money rewards to turn over firearms, no questions asked. These efforts are sometimes termed “compensated confiscation” efforts as the city authorities never sold the firearms in the first place. In addition, those turning in their firearms are likely the least likely to commit violent crimes with those firearms. Gun buy-backs don’t work and the evidence is overwhelming.
One study completed by SUNY New Buffalo State university analyzed the results of five separate buy-back programs between 2007-2012. Researcher Scott W. Phillips summed up the evidence, stating “Does it [gun buy-backs] work? No…Should they keep doing it? I wouldn’t bother wasting their time.”
Mayor de Blasio probably didn’t read that study before including the buy-backs in his proposal.
That’s not all. A National Institute of Justice memo released during the Obama Administration said the same thing, including that 82 percent of law enforcement professionals call buy-backs ineffective at reducing violent crime. Mayor de Blasio likely didn’t read that study either. One could easily conclude he isn’t serious about reducing gun crimes.
A study published in the International Review of Law and Economics has shown that gun buyback programs in the U.S. can, on net balance, actually increase the supply of firearms in circulation. The study differentiates between two types of buybacks: buybacks that occur in an area once, and perpetual buybacks. Single buybacks only temporarily reduce the stock of guns, as many of those who turn in their guns just buy more down the road. As for perpetual buybacks, gun owners can see them as a type of insurance against buyer’s remorse, making someone more likely to purchase a firearm. Firearms aren’t cheap, so wouldn’t it be great to know that if you don’t like yours you can just sell it at a gun buyback and use the money towards another?
Even the left-wing Daily Beast headlined their article on gun buybacks as “Mostly a Waste of Time and Money,” citing one study in their piece which noted that most guns turned in are “old or malfunctioning.”
Buybacks didn’t even work in Australia, which liberals has often (and incorrectly) cited as Exhibit A for gun control working.
