Guns Save Life has quite the reputation for repeatedly stinging government buyback events. We trade junk guns, sometimes utterly trashed guns for perfectly good cash which we then forward to youth shooting programs across the state. Oh yeah, occasionally, we even use the money to buy guns to give away to the kids.
Roughly ten years ago, we popped Chicago for about $6500 while turning in almost 70 guns at one of their gun buybacks. The international publicity caused such a black eye for Murder City USA that they suspended the buyback program for a couple of years. Even today it’s but a weak shadow of its former self.
So in the past month or so, I’ve taken at least four phone calls from supposed members who each have multiple guns to deliver to me for us to take to our next buyback adventure. One was a member I knew from Peoria. Factor him out of this equation.
In fact, with each phone call of these people I didn’t know, the number of guns they have to deliver to me has grown. This most recent one didn’t give an exact number but said it was “probably close to a dozen.”
In past years, I’d get a phone call every now and then. The people would identify themselves and I’d sometimes even recognize their voices. Or they would approach me at meetings.
These past three phone calls have struck me as odd in that they didn’t identify themselves. Not only that but they seemed not only willing to bring them to my house, but maybe just a dash eager.
Now, I remind everyone that under the terms of the Protect Illinois Communities Act, as of July 1st, you’re supposed to run all private transfers through a dealer to do background checks, paperwork, etc. All three of these callers had no need or desire to run these “clunkers” and whatnot through a dealer.
Failure to do so is a felony in pretty short order.
In Gavin DeBecker’s The Gift of Fear, he teaches people not to ignore their intuition.
I’m pretty sure this is a sting. I don’t know if it’s some rogue boys from Chicago’s infamous CAGE unit or if this is the boys over at the Illinois State Police. But I’m reasonably sure these, given their frequency and their eagerness to bring the stuff to me are not interested in helping us sting (pun intended) another gun buyback event.
For the record publicly: We aren’t collecting guns any longer given the end of private transfers in Illinois.
With that in mind, ISP/CPD/whomever is running this sting: please stop calling.
Then again, I might have you bring them and call the law to meet you for attempting to engage in felony gunrunning. Wouldn’t that make for some great video, audio and pictures? Don’t forget, I’ve got 4k surveillance cameras all the way around my residence.
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