At least according to Amy Klobuchar.
This, of course is utterly ridiculous. Let’s leave aside that “buyback” is a misnomer to begin with–you can’t buy something “back” if you didn’t sell it in the first place. (But then, government tends to think everything belongs to them and you only have it because they graciously allow you to keep it…until they don’t.) Let’s break it down.
It’s mandatory. That implies certain things:
- You are not offering enough in your “buyback” to get me to voluntarily part with my guns. I mean, even if I hadn’t lost them all in a tragic boating accident. Oh, sure, you may be offering enough for some people, and maybe even for me to part with some of my guns (If I still had any; had a couple of real dogs in there–well, I was young and didn’t know any better), but I know going in that you aren’t going to offer enough to get me to part with all of them, not voluntarily. And you know it too otherwise there would be no need for “mandatory.”
- Since you are not offering enough to get me to voluntarily part with my guns, you are, by definition, not offering a fair price. Oh, you might think it’s fair, and if you find somebody willing to take it, great. More power to you (except you’re using tax dollars, which means you’re insisting that I pick up the tab for it). However an actual “fair price” is one that both parties to the transaction agree to. And you can’t fall back on “market price” because if you’re banning the sale of the guns. There no longer is a market for there to be a “market price”. You’re just declaring whatever you want as the “fair price.”
- Since you’re not offering a fair price, one which I will agree is sufficient compensation to get me to part with my guns, you must, therefore, have some other reason to get me to do so. You might try what you think is “reason.” You might appeal to my public spirit to give them up for “public safety”. The problem with that is that my guns are no threat to anybody except those who mean harm to me and mine. And, to be honest, I am very little concerned about the safety of those who mean harm to me and mine. Stopping them from harming me and mine is paramount in that equation. And no way does my giving up my guns serve to prevent them from harming me and mine.
- Thus, since what you consider to be “reason” is nothing of the sort and is definitely insufficient to convince me to voluntarily give up my guns, you are left with only one alternative: force. At least you must have the threat of force. You must have the viable threat to send armed individuals to forcibly restrain me and forcibly take my guns away from me.
- That the threat is sufficient for many, that the willingness and ability to send those armed individuals, is sufficient to get many to submit and hand over the guns for whatever “price” you offer to them does not make it any less a use of force, any less a “confiscation.”
Look, force is force even if it’s just “threat of force”, and even if you pay some conscience money afterward. If someone forces another to have sex it’s still rape even if they just used intimidation and never struck a blow.
And even if they drop a C-note on the dresser on their way out the door.
The Writer in Black 
It reminds me of the line from the song “Dreadlock Holiday”:
“Well he looked down at my silver chain
He said I’ll give you one dollar
I said you’ve got to be joking man
It was a present from me’ mother
He said, “I like it I want it
I’ll take it off your hands
And you’ll be sorry you crossed me
You’d better understand that you’re alone
A long way from home”
It’s still theft.
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In Seattle, a few years ago, some enterprising fellows set up a booth across the street from a buyback with a sign that said “cash for guns”. Since the city was offering a $50 Target gift certificate, they cleaned up, taking the pick of the litter for more than $50 but for far less than retail.
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None of these gun-grabbers ever suggest using their own money for gun ‘buybacks’. It’s always taxpayer money. So they, like Ms. Klobuchar, would take money from you to pay you for your gun (part of your point two). That’s what always gets me about this, they are adding insult to injury and telling us it’s good for us.
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To be clear, everything is wrong about it, but the smugness of the gun-grabbers trying to gaslight us just raises my outrage even more. Nor would I be ok with a mandatory buyback if Bloomberg used his own money – as long as it is mandatory it is an abridgement of our rights.
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I’d love to see a clause inserted into every “gun buy-back” program that requires the people “buying back” to accept the price stipulated by the person they’re “buying” the guns “back” from.
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