Thousands Of Firearms Destroyed In Annual ‘Gun Melt’ Event

[SecularMotion]

RANCHO CUCAMONGA (CBSLA.com) — Nearly 5,000 handguns, rifles and other weapons were destroyed Wednesday as part of the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s 21st annual Gun Melt event, authorities said.

KNX 1070’s Karen Harlow reports weapons that were confiscated in Los Angeles County and collected through the “Gift for Guns” program were melted into materials that will eventually help support the county’s infrastructure.

nterim Los Angeles County Sheriff John Scott and other law enforcement officials were on hand for the annual event at the Gerdau Steel Mill in Rancho Cucamonga, which donates its furnace, equipment and personnel to convert the weapons into steel rebar to be used in construction of freeways and bridges.

Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Nicole Nishida said since the program’s inception, over 178,000 weapons have been destroyed.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/08/13/thousands-of-firearms-destroyed-in-annual-gun-melt-event/

[sarisataka]

1. Are you at all familiar with economics?

More specifically the theories if price elasticity, the ability of a market to change supply to meet demand and the infinite supply model?

If so you might not celebrate these actions and the gun buy backs quite so much.

The manufacturers understand them very well both on a micro and macro economic level.

[DonP]

2. I wonder if Kahr, Beretta, S&W, Colt and friends are sending a thank you note? N/T

[ManiacJoe]

3. High quality firearms are not normally the ones turned in.

[flamin lib]

4. Hmmm, a citizen trades a gun for a bag of groceries and then buys a new one

for $300-400???

What world are you guys living in?

[sarisataka]

5. No one who wants the gun

will turn it in at one of these events. That should be obvious. However it does not mean that there isn't a market demand for some of these guns.

Let's assume a 90% junk rate. At $50 each, that is roughly $8 million to collect scrap metal.

The remaining 10% have some value and someone wants them. The market will fill this demand with new product. I believe $600 is a more realistic replacement cost but I'll take your $400. That is still over $7 million in revenue to firearm manufacturers to replace thatt 10%.

[flamin lib]

6. No one who wants a gun doesn't have one. Those guns with retail value

were not on the market, not in the retail stream, so there will be no replacement of inventory because the inventory never existed anyway.

To imagine otherwise is pure gunnery delerium.

[petronius]

7. The point, I think, is that the market demand exists. Any salable firearms in the city's

possession could have been sold, but the city instead chose to melt this resource for symbolic purposes. So instead, potential buyers for these (hypothetical) useful firearms will go elsewhere. You're mistaken to say that inventory never existed; it did exist, in the hands of the city. But it's not a question of replacement, it's a question of whose inventory goes to meet an existing demand.

I have some positive things to say about firearms trade-in events, but the choice to slag a resource that could be used more productively is a mistake, IMO...

On edit: To add, though, I can't imagine that manufacturers and the rest of the firearms industry really care either way about what a city chooses to do with sold, traded, or confiscated firearms. The numbers are too trivial to matter in the grand scheme of it all.

[sarisataka]

8. You are forgetting

Or willfully ignoring, the secondary market. There is a demand for used guns- gun shows, web sites etc., and some of these guns would be the supply to fill that demand.
To deny it is ideological myopia.

If the secondary market does not fully supply the demand, the shortfall will be fulfilled by the retail market with new items. This is true for any durable good, be it a car, gun, washing machine or spoon.
To deny that is a lack of understanding of economics.

[flamin lib]

10. I am neither forgetting nor ignoring the market. These guns were never on the market

regardless of the value or saleability. If they were on the unregulated secondary market they would have been purchased if offered at a reasonable price. They were never part of the unregulated secondary market, were not part of that inventory and will not be replaced with new manufacture or an increase in unregulated secondary market sales or inventory.

To pretend that a buy back and destruction of guns will stimulate the market is foolish at best and delusional on its face. Let me repeat; these guns were never in the marketplace therefore they cannot be removed from the marketplace and will not change the marketplace nor change the supply/demand curve.

After 10 years in retail management and another 22 in professional b2b sales negotiating multi million $ deals with VPs of international companies I have a fairly good grasp of marketplace economics.

[sarisataka]

11. Nice resume

I'm a bit more blue collar but to each their own.

So by your definition my car, which is not currently for sale, is not part of the marketplace. The fact that I may at some point choose to get rid of it is irrelevant. When I do get rid of it I could junk it for $50 or sell it at market vale. Its existence has no impact on the supply of vehicles.

[blueridge3210]

12. So went the theory behind "cash for clunkers".

Which, by all appearances, has had a detrimental effect on the availability of used cars for sale to people of limited means.

[flamin lib]

15. Now you get it. Your car is not on the market. Therefore not has no impact on the market.

If you put your car up for sale it becomes part of the market, part of the inventory up for sale and as such could nudge the market either to new manufacture (if it is over priced) or to secondary market if priced competitively (in which case it will decrease the need of new manufacture). If you choose to salvage it for parts (surrender it in a buyback) it won't alter the sales market.

As for resume, once I turned 55 my MS degrees and sales experience plus $5.00 would get me a cup of Starbucks if I didn't ask for extra or double anything. Last job was graveyard at a convenience store. Got to see a whole other side of 'Merica. Do not feel intimidated by anybody if you shower after work instead of before.

Others in the thread have thought selling the guns and recouping the revenue for civic use would be a higher use. It's an argument that can be made. The flip side is that fewer guns means less gun violence and that was a consideration in funding the buy back. The decision on what to do rests with the owners of the guns and their judgment as to the greater good.

[Duckhunter935]

18. We get it

That took used cars from the marketplace and people bought new cars. Not quite the same with guns but yes new guns will be purchased and the firearms manufacturers will sell some.

[krispos42]

17. There is demand for guns to buy.

The guns that were melted down, some of them, could have been sold. Instead, they were destroyed.

So demand was denied those melted down guns. This means that people went "someplace else" to get there used guns. And because every used gun was, at some point a new gun, this will lead to more new gun sales. Icing on a market that moves 15 million units a year.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

9. a sad unrec for this, -1

While any recovery program may have some good results, a melt program goes only to propound the idea that the gun itself is the evil and those who use it illegally are not burdened with whatever "blame" is symbolically heaped on the inanimate object.

The proceeds from a sale would benefit the community and sale would take unwanted and confiscated guns that were in fit condition and put them in the hands of someone that passed a background check.

Proceed on with culture war; when those are melted, make some from straw and burn in effigy. Lather, rinse, repeat, ....and most of all, learn nothing!

[ileus]

13. another -1

[Lurks Often]

14. Or they could have been auctioned off to people able to pass a NICS check

If you average $250 per gun*, that would have been $44.5 million dollars available to fund anti-crime programs.


*Pretty good chance that for every 10 guns maybe worth $50 a gun, there will be one worth $1000 or more.

[Eleanors38]

16. Meh. Over-engineered rebar.