Voluntary assault weapons buyback

[Qutzupalotl]

I think this sounds like a good idea. Sign if you agree.

Start a voluntary assault weapons buyback. Use federal dollars to buy assault weapons at or just below price of new. No questions asked. Encourage (but don't force) parents with small children to participate. This will reduce the number of these weapons available to kids without violating the second amendment.
http://wh.gov/RuRX

[Indydem]

1. People don't own "assault weapons" by accident.

We have them on purpose and we want to keep them. Why even bother?

[Qutzupalotl]

4. Their attitudes may have changed since Friday.

[FightingIrish]

2. Melt them down and build a monument

to all the victims of senseless gun violence.

[boston bean]

3. nope, I want it to be mandatory that they be turned in. Period.

A civilized society these instruments of death in the hand of civilians.

We have a right to not live in fear of them.

[Indydem]

5. Why do you live in fear?

You have a greater probability of being poisoned or dying in a car wreck.

[boston bean]

6. No one should have to fear that a nut has access to these killing machines and fear for their

childrens lives.

My oh my, guess what happened on Friday.... 20 innocent children and 6 of their teachers were mowed down by a very scary man with a killing machine.

I refuse to think that this country should consider this normal and a price to pay for some people to own these guns. Period.

Stop making it about my fear personally. I don't live in complete fear, but the way things are going, and those wanting more arms instead of less, are creating a society that is repulsive to me.

[Indydem]

10. Your fear is a symptom of something far greater.

You, and people like you, see every gun owner and every gun as a weapon against people just waiting to commit murder.

You see firearms as having no other purpose than to murder people.

You think gun owners are odd at best and crazy at worst.

I bet in all honesty that you have never known a member of the NRA or anyone who has owned a number of firearms responsibly.

Your opinions are wrong. The fact that you feel that way about gun owners is what is wrong. They feel you want to take their guns BECAUSE YOU WANT TO TAKE THEIR GUNS.

I am sounding a warning bell to every Democrat in America,and it would be in their best interests to heed it: attempting any of this gun-control foolishness is only going to feed them. It's going to make them more paranoid and more powerful. When the next President goes out and says "I don't support gun control" no one is going to believe them and the half of America that owns firearms is going to recoil in disgust at the party that made gun control their political agenda.

[hack89]

7. You must have a lot of fear in your life

considering how low such weapons are on the list of murder weapons.

[boston bean]

9. Yeah, those babes and teachers at the school had nothing to fear...

Listen, this absolute tragedy, is a call to stop this madness.

It puts the fear into every single parent who sent their kids to school today.

I'm not alone in that fear, and not wishing this for a civilized society.

I still go do my grocery shopping, send my kid to college, and everything else. Stop being so damned ridiculous.

[Indydem]

11. I sent both my kids to school today and I had no fear.

They had a greater probability of dying on the car ride there than a madman with a gun shooting up their school.

Your perspective is fatally skewed.

[Lizzie Poppet]

13. It's a matter of prioritization.

The technical term is "prioritization of threat hierarchies." Fear of a spree-killer with a high-capacity semi-automatic rifle is an easy thing to have occur after the massive media explosion following a tragic happening like Sandy Point. That's an emotional reaction, and any mentally healthy person has it to some degree or another. My own emotional reaction over this event was more grief over the senselessly murdered children and educators than it was fear of someone looking to commit a similar act, but everyone responds differently.

But prioritizing threat hierarchies isn't something one does when in the grip of such emotions (which is why people forced to do so under emergency conditions often get it horribly wrong). It's a coolly rational process that has to be based on legitimate probabilities. And the fact is, a spree killer with an "assault weapon" is far, far less of a probable threat to anyone than a garden-variety thug with a handgun. Out of our nation's shameful total of about 10k gun-related homicides per year, spree-killers will account for about 0.01% of these, even in a bad year for the latter. Placing these scenarios high up on one's threat priority list is, to be blunt, an irrational fear.

That's not necessarily anything bad. Fear is an emotion...it's not expected to be entirely rational. But using it as a basis for making public policy strikes me as a very bad idea.

[hack89]

14. So focus on the real killers - handguns, not rifles.

Getting rid of all semi-automatic rifles while leaving handguns is feel good legislation that does not make us safer. That is the lesson of Virginia Tech. This killing could have been done just as easily with those two pistols he carried.

[cthulu2016]

8. This only makes sense i you banned manufacture and import first

otherwise it's just a price support program for assault weapons

[Qutzupalotl]

15. The petition keeps the buyback amount at or below market value.

I'm not too concerned about the price. If it goes up, that makes them harder for people to buy. Less supply in this case is a good thing, and the whole point.

[LP2K12]

12. I would consider this...

However... I, an Army veteran, have an assault rifle that was passed down to me by my father-in-law, a Marine veteran. It remains in a secure gun safe, unloaded. I store no ammo for it in my home.

It hasn't left my house in over a year and when it did it was to a range.

[backscatter712]

16. I'd make it involuntary.

Even the Roberts Court, with it's strict constructionist interpretation of the 2nd, made it clear that there's leeway for regulation necessary for public safety. I'd say that there's enough leeway to restrict types of weapons, and ammo capacities in weapons available to the public.

The buyback would simply be compensating current owners of newly illegal firearms for being required to part with them.