This one may get long, so bear with me.

You may remember the post I did about the legality of holding a gun buyback in a church with a school attached (or vice-versa).

And since Miramar PD answered with the proper response, I had an idea to participate and get some cash for a gun.

This shotgun was in the attic of my wife’s parents for Lord knows how many years and if I recall correctly, it belonged to her great great grandfather or something like that. I forget what markings it had, but I was a manufacturer that disappeared in the early 1900s and the particular model came to exist in  the early 1890s.

And the darned thing was in really bad shape. First, is from the era prior to smokeless powder, so shooting with modern shells was out of the question. One firing pin was missing and the other was welded shut with rust. The hammer springs were broken or missing, the triggers did not move and the stock was broken. Do I even have to describe the conditions of the barrels inside and out?

Rather than get rid of it, I thought about the John Candy movie The Great Outdoors and had the idea of making a lamp like the one in flick. But I kinda forgot about it and the shotgun has been relegated to the back of my office closet for 20 years or so. I recently decided to do a honest-to God cleaning, found it and pulled it out. When the notice of the buyback appeared, I went “why not, right?”

So I drove to the church and got in line. As they asked, the shotgun was in the back of my truck and I just waited till it was my turn.  I was approached by a young lady who very politely thanked me for coming and gave me a goody bag courtesy of the commissioner involved in the organizing of the gun buyback.

Next, things got interesting and it was a good thing I was wearing a mask. I was approached by a lady representing the League of Women Voters of Broward County offering gun locks. She started to give the “stats” of the dangers of guns at home and I bit hard on my tongue not to argue. I did score a couple of gun locks that will proudly be attached to my Sporting Rifles in honor of them just because League of Women Voters has been notoriously Anti Gun in Florida and are willing to go to committees and speak their piece. Their last intervention was the opposition of Church Carry.

And if you are suddenly thinking “Hey, how come they are doing their version of Project Childsafe?” You are not alone, that thought crossed my mind, but again I kept my mouth shut and at the end of the day, I can’t disagree with even the enemy distributing gun locks. But it was what was on the other side of that pamphlet that shows they are sort of copying our side when it comes to real Gun Safety:

That is literally ripped from the Eddie Eagle Program.  For a bunch of people who despise the NRA and falsely denounced Eddie Eagle as a way to get kids into guns, it demands a enormous level of hypocrisy to steal from it for your brownie points scorecard.

Next I was approached by this young lady:

This was a horrifying concept with the prices of ammo the way they are. But  she was a very jovial person and explained to me they take apart the rounds (I saw her friend with a bullet puller) and make jewelry out of the inert components. At my request, she is showing the bracelets with casings and also the pendant. She was such a nice person, I simply did not have the heart to even think about making jokes on ammo prices and wasting good cartridges.

The officers of Miramar PD were polite and friendly. They were extending invitations to an event next week just to shoot the shit with regular folks. Not a bad idea IMHO.

The line moved slowly and this was the vehicle in front of me:

I counted 3 single shot shotguns, one pump and I believe one of those cheap Rohm revolvers. And I have my suspicion that the shotgun on the left fails to conform with the NFA regulations. No wonder Gun Buybacks are called evidence destruction gatherings.

Then it came my turn and my shotgun was safely retrieved. There was so much rust in that thing, the officer was probably wondering if his tetanus shot was up to date.

Next task for the experts on site was to find markings and a serial number.

I overhead one of the cops commenting that the shotgun was older than he was. A more accurate description would be that nobody in Broward county was alive when that thing was manufactured, sometime before the Rough Riders assaulted San Juan Hill during the Spanish American War.

I believe this gentleman was the “appraiser.”

Eventually I was offered $100 and I gladly accepted. They will be properly invested in the purchasing of ammunition, of course.

And that was the loot so far when I left. The buyback had been on for a couple of hours at most, so I have no idea what they ended up collecting.

So basically, my “infiltration” in enemy territory and scoring loot was successful.  And as my wife has pointed out many times, I can keep my trap shut and not get myself in trouble and avoid pissing people off just because.

But my tongue is sore.