By Nikki Silverstein
Hero: The Marin County District Attorney’s office wants your guns and they’re willing to pony up big bucks for them. The gun buyback program pays $200 cash for each operable semi-automatic handgun or assault rifle and $100 cash for any other operable firearm, up to three per person. After the DA receives the modern-day muskets, they are destroyed and recycled, keeping them off our streets and out of our landfills forever. Gather your guns and a valid ID or a current utility bill (just to verify residency) and bring them to the California Highway Patrol in Corte Madera, the Marin County Sheriff’s Sub-Station in Point Reyes or the police departments in Mill Valley, Novato and San Rafael on Tuesday, September 13, from 11am until 8pm.
Zero: Todd Rundgren, we adored you before you insulted us during your Sausalito Art Festival encore on Labor Day. We still do, so it really hasn’t made any difference, but we want to help you see the light. The audience was rhapsodic to hear “Hello, It’s Me” when you returned to the stage. Then you said you’d hoped to get away without playing it and you should have the freedom not to. You performed the song anyway, yet left us wondering whether our nostalgic desire to hear your chart-toppers makes us naïve and unsophisticated. We still want to be friends and just hope that you’ll refrain from belittling your fans. Now go bang on those drums all day and keep the dream going on forever.
Because gun buybacks get guns off the street. There’s a special kind of stupid that believes that. Point to one reduction in crime, gun seizures or other indicator that these do anything besides waste taxpayer money that could be used to fill potholes or upkeep parks.
CJ,
Simply put, if a gun is removed from circulation and melted down, you have effectively taken it off the street forever. Ask Australia if gun buybacks work. After their deadly massacre in the mid 90s, they did what our country refuses to do: a gun buyback coupled with outlawing semi-automatic guns. So, yes, we’re still missing an important component to make gun buybacks more effective, but at least we’re doing something and that feels better than doing absolutely nothing.
Regarding your comment about my stupidity, I appreciate that you at least called me special. Next time, please note that I prefer the term precious.
Best,
Nikki Silverstein