Hi Jim:
Just wanted to let you know that my teen-age sons are reading “Patriots”, (the latest edition). I appreciate that your book is one that a father can allow his children to read, because it isn’t filled with sex scenes. While I’m sure my sons are not ignorant about such things, there is no reason to shove their faces in it constantly.
The real reason for this e-mail is to give you and the readers another idea for raising funds for purchases, and best of all, you get the funds from liberals!
Several months ago, we had a “gun buy back” in the two neighboring cities where I live. I had been waiting for just this type of event, because I had eleven junk guns to turn in. I only turned in ten, because the lady in line in front of me traded me a 4″ S&W K-22, target “combat masterpiece” for an old, bolt action 20 gauge.
Before the readers start burning me in effigy, let me note that the shotgun was the best of the guns to be turned in. The rest were junk that had been given to me by friends who know that I am “into” tinkering with broken firearms. The H&R .22 revolver that I had fixed would not group into the side of a barn from the inside, an old Remington .22 rifle with scope grooves hand ground with a side grinder (no kidding) did not function reliably, the other guns were the same level of worth. I could not morally sell or even give someone a firearm that I knew to be extremely unreliable, so this was my chance to get something for guns that were one step from being boat anchor material.
Now the best part is, if the gun was deemed to be “functional” the owner was given $75, “non functional” guns were worth $50 this was in the form of gift cards to a major “big-box” store that sells almost everything, including fuel and ammo. The store gift cards were a parts of the cards donated, others were from grocery stores and restaurants. I ended up with over $600, and a decent K-22.
Almost every gun nut that I know has a few guns that are absolute junk and probably unsafe to fire. If it is a quality made gun that has just seen too many hard times, first check with someone knowledgeable about collector guns. If it truly is “junk” then save what parts might be salvageable, (sights, magazines, springs, pins, etc.) and put them in an envelope with the make, model, and caliber of gun they were from. Some people have guns that were in a house fire and were badly damaged. This is a chance to salvage some value for them.
By the way, a friend of mine was watching the whole event, and he told me that out of approximately 150 guns turned in, perhaps four were of decent quality. It seems that gun owners were using the opportunity to get cash (or near cash) for junk. The big giveaway was when they asked for the gun cases back. All the best, – Raggedyman
JWR Replies: Thanks for that tip. OBTW, I refuse to use the term gun “Buy Back”, since it is Orwellian Newspeak. How can these liberal love fests be a “Buy Backs‘ if the government (or other sponsor of these idiotic programs) never owned the guns in the first place? So properly, they should be called Buy-Ups.