North Dakota Bill Would Ban Buybacks With Public Money

By Tom Knighton

We cover a fair number of buybacks here, mostly to criticize them for being a complete and total failure. We often get a kick out of the stupid things officials hand money over for, things like training rocket launcher tubes that never fired actual rockets. Another buyback gave money for a piece of pipe mounted to a 2×4, for crying out loud.

It’s hilarious.

However, what’s not funny is that taxpayer dollars go to fund these things all too often. Now, a North Dakota bill wants to change that within its borders.

North Dakota legislators are considering a ban on public firearm buyback programs, which local governments and law enforcement agencies even in some gun-friendly conservative states commonly use to voluntarily remove weapons from the street.

Republican state Rep. Luke Simons, the primary sponsor of the bill, told a House committee Thursday that firearm buybacks do nothing to increase public safety and shouldn’t be subsidized by taxpayer money. His proposed ban wouldn’t apply to programs sponsored by private entities.

“The state should not be in the business of buying back guns. Ever,” Simons, a Dickinson Republican, told the Political Subdivisions Committee, of which he is a member.

Simons isn’t wrong. …Read the Rest

Source:: Bearing Arms