A Massachusetts police department that wants to sell nearly three dozen surplus shotguns to a local gun store to help underwrite the cost of obtaining new shotguns for officers has run into resistance from gun control activists, who instead insist that the guns in question should be destroyed rather than be resold.
The Falmouth Gun Safety Coalition has been around a few years, and they’re not shy about their fundamental goal; a ban on “semi-automatic mechanisms in firearms.” But that’s not their only objective. In this case, the group is trying to halt the trade of the police department’s used shotguns, valued at about $4,100, because… well, because they don’t want to see any guns sold to anyone, apparently. While they can’t stop the lawful commerce in firearms, they’re more than willing to block any sale that they can.
A financial loss for the town with the destruction of the guns is nothing compared to costs associated with rising gun violence, said coalition president Nan Logan.
“We are trying to wake people up to that cost,” said Logan on Wednesday. “We haven’t had any of those horrible Newtown (Sandy Hook) events here but there’s no reason why we wouldn’t.”
Logan spoke at a Feb. 12 Falmouth Select Board meeting. The coalition wants the surplus guns to be destroyed so that parts cannot be resold and reused.
The 33 surplus 12-gauge shotguns are to be sold back to Jurek Brothers, a police supply vendor in Greenfield, as part of a deal to purchase new shotguns.
The shotguns have a $4,100 trade-in value, said Town Manager Mike Renshaw.
Falmouth Police Lieutenant Michael Simoneau confirmed the trade-in value. Police are waiting on a decision from Renshaw on whether the surplus weapons will be traded in, or destroyed, Simoneau said. Police Chief Jeffrey Lourie could not be immediately reached by the Times for comment.
If all of this sounds strangely familiar, it may be because the gun control group raised similar complaints just a couple of years ago, when the police department wanted to trade in 21 semi-automatic firearms to help underwrite the cost of purchasing 38 new guns for officers. In that case, the deal ended up going forward, but only after the gun shop agreed to resell the guns only to local law enforcement.
That was a dumb decision, but the local leaders in Falmouth are encouraging Town Manager Mike Renshaw to take an even more idiotic step now that the sale of the surplus shotguns has become an issue.
An existing town policy, said Renshaw, gives him the authority to make the final decision on whether the surplus weapons will be traded in or destroyed. Conversations between Renshaw and Lourie remain ongoing, Renshaw said. But some Select Board members wanted to explore options on how the public could donate towards the $4,100 trade-in value and the guns could be destroyed.
“I don’t want to give an impression that we’ve made the final decision and that they’re going to be destroyed,” said Renshaw. “The police chief and I have not made that decision.”
The town isn’t generally allowed to destroy goods paid for with municipal funds, Town Counsel Maura O’Keefe said.
“But if taxpayers exhibit a desire to destroy a particular set of goods and forego that fiduciary duty, then the Select Board would be able to go ahead and do that without undermining fiduciary duty,” she said.
That’s right. They want taxpayers to donate money to ensure that the shotguns will be destroyed, rather than risk them being sold through an FFL to someone who can lawfully possess a gun in Massachusetts. That means that not only would the buyer have passed a background check, but they would have been given their Second Amendment permission slip by the local police department, which has to sign off on all Class A or Class B licenses that are required to keep and bear arms in the state.
Massachusetts’ gun laws, as draconian as they are, simply don’t go far enough for the prohibitionists who are a part of the Falmouth Gun Safety Coalition.
Falmouth resident Mark Finneran, during the Select Board meeting, said guns in the community are not the problem but that the people using the guns are the problem.
The Rev. Deborah Warner, during the meeting, said she’s ready to work with members of the Select Board and other town government leaders to fulfill citizens’ fiduciary duties.
“We know what the aftermath looks like when an active shooter fires shots. We’ve seen footage over and over again far too often,” said Warner, a rector at Church of the Messiah in Falmouth. “We can pay the price and choose to stop the flow of guns. We can do that. In fact, we must.”
No, you can’t, and no, you must not. We have a right to keep and bear arms, and that means we have the right to buy them. Trying to stop a mass shooting by depriving everyone of their Second Amendment rights is grossly unconstitutional as trying to prevent online sex trafficking by shutting off everyone’s access to the Internet.
The Falmouth Gun Safety Coalition isn’t interested in gun “safety”. Their aim is the destruction of our right to keep and bear arms. They may have picked some low-hanging fruit with their campaign to force the police department to destroy surplus firearms instead of using them as trade-ins for new ones, but they’ve made it abundantly clear that the guns they’re really intent on destroying are in the hands of Massachusetts gun owners, and not just the Falmouth PD.
Government continues to try any and all legislation that will make it hard or better for them, impossible to own a gun of any kind. they do believe in self defense, their own. while our second amendment regulates federal government powers. it doesn’t cover the power of the state.
Most if not all state constitutions use the federal constitution as guide. wording that mirrors it word for word. Therefore the protections they provide are or should be identical. This is where government double speak is applied. We have seen what governments, federal or state uses the wording of laws to invent expanded coverage of a law.
The term, shall not be infringed being at the end of the sentence seems to signal that it can be ignored. Government agents are expert at all languages. mostly bad language. Poor grammar being the rule for America the agents interpretation isn’t challenged. If you don’t know what your rights are you don’t have any. Strange they find time to spend money protecting the people of other nations but work with all devotion to remove our ability to defend ourselves.
They work with fevered pitch to stop gov. shutdown working well into the eleventh hour to avert another crisis. yet spend months debating on how to get around the control of our constitution to pass laws to control guns. all done under the label of “reasonable laws”. Protect the children. always failing to tell us that we must wait from ten to thirty minutes for help from an officer or depend upon yourself that takes two minutes to arm yourself.
Then when you choose to defend yourself and family will prosecute you for anything their twisted interpretation of existing laws find that will take your gun away. The story I tell isn’t isolated incidences. the goal is to remove as many as they can. even one is a win for their side.
I wont even mention the fact that gun laws, or any laws are not applied equally. it is justice for us but JUST-US for themselves. So why do they focus so hard on guns. it isnt to protect the citizens, but themselves. They know that controlling a nation must remove any and all means of resistance.
This is the only goal. Working to circumvent the confinement that limit the powers granted by our constitution. Each day they chip away at these controls. tacking on a paragraph on another piece of legislation that quietly expand their powers. They have become expert showmen when it comes to putting on a show that “investigates” the corruption they are as guilty of. we have seen many televised and long winded investigations that work very hard to compliment everyone with the valuable service they provide the public. How many people have been convicted of even perjury?
What we see are hours of showmanship that pat each other on the back exclaiming how great they are. What does it provide? hardly information or even entertainment. what we get is misdirection to efforts that government need to hide their actions. It isnt working!
We see what you are trying to do. I am old enough to remember what our government did. starting with the murder of President Kennedy. the attack on the Branch Davidian’s at Waco Texas. the bombing of the Mura building that is claimed as a terror bombing with a bomb that wasn’t powerful enough to do the job. or the sniper that killed a woman with a baby in her arms at ruby ridge for a crime they couldn’t prove. then most can remember 911 that took down two towers with such precision that couldnt be done with a plane. and damage to the pentagon that is protected by state of the art protection. Yea Right!.
All I have looked at the events and are all suspect. We as citizens have been distracted by the need to provide for our families. What was once done with one income now takes two. diverting our attention away from gov. actions. because we had many years that politicians actually represented the citizens. (or did with more effort than today. today gov. uses this distraction to expand their power.
to do this they must have dependent subjects. please note I didn’t say citizens. without these victims that are told that only government can help them. to do so they must have their support with their vote. each passing day we have more dependent. Now they import them. ten million to date. using our taxes to provide better lives and benefits than many of our veteran’s get.
My thoughts are coming harder now so I must stop. We still have a choice to save our republic. Time is becoming short. time to choose. living in freedom or tyranny.——– I, Grampa