There’s Just One Problem With Gun Buybacks
One warm North Carolina fall morning, a platoon of Durham County Sheriff’s Office employees was enjoying an exhibit of historical firearms in a church parking lot. They were on duty, tasked with running a gun buyback, an event at which citizens can turn firearms over to the police for cash, anonymously and with no questions asked. But one fringe benefit was seeing some antique armaments.
As people drove up and handed in their guns, deputies took the weapons, made sure they were unloaded, ran a zip tie through the barrels to render them safe, and then handed them off for cataloging by a detective with an impressive knowledge of firearm history. Then they brought cash payments back to the drivers—$100 for a long gun, $150 for a pistol, and $200 for an assault rifle—and offered them free gun locks for whatever remained at home.
Many of the specimens were unremarkable, such with Chinese characters stamped on the barrel. But the consensus star of the day was an old Swiss rifle of indeterminate caliber, with a manufacturer’s mark indicating that it had been made in January 1877. “You don’t see one of these every day,” a staff member remarked. (Ostensibly, the guns have to be in working order, but in practice, deputies didn’t have the means or time to test the ones I saw come in.)
