Los Angeles police offer gift cards to take guns off streets

[Ban Hammer 12,842]

duplicate topics merged

[Teddy B 17,251]

There are no facts here. So you're seriously going to attribute people turning in some unwanted crappy guns for gift cards to a reduction in violence? Where's the link between the two?

What did I say or what was in the story that wasn't factual? The gun buyback program in LA was/is a huge success, they take almost 2,000 guns off the street every year. Since the beginning of the buyback program violent crime rates have dropped 33%. Did you stop to think for a minute that maybe they weren't all unwanted crappy guns and that getting a large amount of them off the street helped reduce the level of violent crime? Heck, did you even read the article?

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Interesting how one poster states all the guns exchanged were "crappy" and "broken" guns, while another posts how some folks thwart the buy back, by buying all the "usable" weapons for cash instead of food gift cards, effectively putting the weapons back on the street, when those weapons end up at gun shows the following weekend.

[Karee 4,189]

What did I say or what was in the story that wasn't factual? The gun buyback program in LA was/is a huge success, they take almost 2,000 guns off the street every year. Since the beginning of the buyback program violent crime rates have dropped 33%. Did you stop to think for a minute that maybe they weren't all unwanted crappy guns and that getting a large amount of them off the street helped reduce the level of violent crime? Heck, did you even read the article?

Let's put this into persepective. According to this data, there were 10 million gun purchases in the U.S. in 2011. Thes numbers are admitedly very crude accoriding to the article, but it is all I could find.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-horwitz/the-truth-about-gun-sales_b_1193498.

The population of LA county is 10 million. Population of the U.S. is ~300 million. So L.A. county has 3 % of the U.S. population. 3% of 10 million guns is 300k. So roughly 300k guns were purchased in 2011 in L.A. county. 300k / by 365 days a year = 821 guns sold every day in LA. county Since there are no official buyback numbers for this one yet, but according to the article there were 1,673 guns turned in. So about a double the amount of guns were turned in than purchased on that day. Meaning that in order to break even, L.A. county would have to have a gun buyback every other day and continue to collect 1600+ guns on those days. This would theoretically keep the numbers stable at 300k guns. Also, this has nothing to do with guns that were purchased prior to 2011. You can call that a success story if you want.

It seems to me to be more of a story to make everyone feel good, rather than actually accomplishing anything. Kind of like those stories when a fireman resecues a cat from a tree. Yay! the cat is happy, but did anything really change? Not really.

Edited December 27, 2012 by Karee

[Teddy B 17,251]

Let's put this into persepective.<BR><BR>According to this data, there were 10 million gun purchases in the U.S. in 2011. Thes numbers are admitedly very crude accoriding to the article, but it is all I could find. <BR> <A href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-horwitz/the-truth-about-gun-sales_b_1193498.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-horwitz/the-truth-about-gun-sales_b_1193498.html</A><BR><BR>The population of LA county is 10 million. Population of the U.S. is ~300 million. So L.A. county has 3 % of the U.S. population. 3% of 10 million guns is 300k. So roughly 300k guns were purchased in 2011 in L.A. county. 300k / by 365 days a year = 821 guns sold every day in LA. county Since there are no official buyback numbers for this one yet, but according to the article there were 1,673 guns turned in. So about a double the amount of guns were turned in than purchased on that day. Meaning that in order to break even, L.A. county would have to have a gun buyback every other day and continue to collect 1600+ guns on those days. This would theoretically keep the numbers stable at 300k guns.<BR><BR>You can call that a success story if you want. It seems to me to be more of a story to make everyone feel good, rather than actually accomplishing anything. Kind of like those stories when a fireman resecues a cat from a tree. Yay! the cat is happy, but did anything really change? Not really.

Why are you stuck on how many guns are in the US? How does that change the success of the buy back program? It doesn't! You are doing everything possible to diminish the success of the program and failing miserably.

[Karee 4,189]

Why are you stuck on how many guns are in the US? How does that change the success of the buy back program? It doesn't! You are doing everything possible to diminish the success of the program and failing miserably.

I'd say your counter-argument and reading comprehension skills are failing misreably. I broke it down to numbers of guns purchased legally in the U.S. and then broke that down based on the population of L.A. If you can't understand the difference between L.A. and the U.S., there's not much I can do to help you.

[Teddy B 17,251]

I'd say your counter-argument and reading comprehension skills are failing misreably. I broke it down to numbers of guns purchased legally in the U.S. and then broke that down based on the population of L.A. If you can't understand the difference between L.A. and the U.S., there's not much I can do to help you.

You can break the numbers down however you want, it doesn't change or disprove anything I've posted, which is what you are attempting to do. What does the total amount of gun purchases or total amount of guns in the entire world for that matter, have to do with the fact that 8,000 guns have been taken off the streets of LA and violent crime has dropped by 33% since 2009? Absolutely nothing.

[Karee 4,189]

You can break the numbers down however you want, it doesn't change or disprove anything I've posted, which is what you are attempting to do. What does the total amount of gun purchases or total amount of guns in the entire world for that matter, have to do with the fact that 8,000 guns have been taken off the streets of LA and violent crime has dropped by 33% since 2009? Absolutely nothing.

First of all show me some data that the 33% drop in violent crime is related to 8000 guns being taken off the street. You can't of course. Also, violent crime as defined by the U.S. by the Dept. of Justice covers Murder, Forcible Rape, Robbery, Aggravated Assault, and Simple Assault. How many of those involved a firearm? Not real sure, but I assume you could at least take simple assault out of the mix. Also, according to the Dept. of Justice numbers, violent crime has declined by more than 67% between 1994 and 2009 in the U.S., yet the number of firearms sold has increased rapidly. How do you explain that?

ETA: the officials admittedly moved the date of this buyback program up due to the recent murders in Connecticut. I'd like to see the numbers if they didn't do that.

Edited December 27, 2012 by Karee

[Teddy B 17,251]

First of all show me some data that the 33% drop in violent crime is related to 8000 guns being taken off the street. You can't of course. Also, violent crime as defined in the U.S. by the Dept. of Justice covers Murder, Forcible Rape, Robbery, Aggravated Assault, and Simple Assault. How many of those involved a firearm? Not real sure, but I assume you could at least take simple assault out of the mix. Also, according to the Dept. of Justice numbers, violent crime has declined by more than 67% between 1994 and 2009 in the U.S., yet the number of firearms sold has increased rapidly. How do you explain that?

Show me that the drop in crime isn't related to the 8,000 guns taken off the street, you can't because there are no such stats to reference. You can chose to ignore the numbers and say that gun buy backs don't work, that's completely fine by me. But you haven't and can't dispute what I have posted. So, until you do, I'll just take the numbers at face value and "feel good" about them.

[Karee 4,189]

Ohh and by the way, I have nothing against these buyback programs at all. I just think it's fantasy to think they are actually doing anything to reduce gun violence in this country.

[Teddy B 17,251]

Ohh and by the way, I have nothing against these buyback programs at all. I just think it's fantasy to think they are actually doing anything to reduce gun violence in this country.

Do you think it's a fantasy to think that perhaps one or two unneccessary deaths may have been prevented by these buy back programs?

[Karee 4,189]

Show me that the drop in crime isn't related to the 8,000 guns taken off the street, you can't because there are no such stats to reference. You can chose to ignore the numbers and say that gun buy backs don't work, that's completely fine by me. But you haven't and can't dispute what I have posted. So, until you do, I'll just take the numbers at face value and "feel good" about them.

I don't have any reason to feel good or bad about facts and numbers. Numbers don't lie

Ok as far as the crime stats. Let's take Dallas where I live.

http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Dallas-Texas.html

The violent crime index fell from 788.8 in 2001 to 387.2 in 2010. That's more than a 50% drop in violent crime! I'm not sure how they pulled that off without a gun buy-back program, but they did.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

At last count LA had collected over 2500 legal and illegal guns including assault weapons in just one day.

What is an assault weapon. Give me your definition.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

You would be betting wrong, as usual. And yes, quite a few were stolen, that's part of the reason for the program genius. I've come to not expect much from you in the way of intelligent conversation, and that's a bet I win everytime.

And ofcourse you have statistics to prove what I posted is wrong.

So you launch a program that encourages people to steal other peoples property, for which they can sell to a government fence no questions asked. You think that is genius. ?? Speechless.

[Karee 4,189]

Do you think it's a fantasy to think that perhaps one or two unneccessary deaths may have been prevented by these buy back programs?

I would bet more than one or two deaths were prevented by this program. I don't dispute that it's a good thing. I'm just saying in the overall picture, gun buy-backs don't work when it comes to reducing violent crime. It's just not effective. We need real answers to this issue. I don't understand why there is 1 firearm for every man, woman, and child in this country. That seems really excessive to me. All I'm saying is that gun buy back programs aren't going to do anything to resolve this. This isn't Australia or the U.K.

So you launch a program that encourages people to steal other peoples property, for which they can sell to a government fence no questions asked. You think that is genius. ?? Speechless.

Laugh, I didn't even take that into account.