In Lean Times, SoCal Residents Trade Guns for Food
December 8th, 2008How many boxes of Cheezits were the hand grenades worth?
Via: AP:
A program to exchange guns for gifts brought in a record number of weapons this year as residents hit hard by the economy look under the bed and in closets to find items to trade for groceries.
The annual Gifts for Guns program ended Sunday in Compton, a working class city south of Los Angeles that has long struggled with gun and gang violence. In a program similar to ones in New York and San Francisco, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department allows residents to anonymously relinquish firearms in return for $100 gift cards for Ralphs supermarkets, Target department stores or Best Buy electronics stores.
Turning in assault rifles yields double that amount.
In years past, Target and Best Buy were the cards of choice, with residents wanting presents for the holidays.
This year, most asked for the supermarket cards, said sheriff’s Sgt. Byron Woods.
“People just don’t have the money to buy the food these days,” he said.
Deputies were counting the weapons collected and expected to gather about 1,000. Authorities said 590 guns and two hand grenades were handed in during the last weekend in November, more than the total collected in any year and eclipsing last year’s 387 guns.
First comes credit cards for food; next comes food riots; next comes revolution. Pretty clever how the authorities are trying to get as many guns out of the hands of the starving before the riots and revolution hit. I bet the NRA is steamed.
Blackwater wants the grenades for use against unarmed civilians:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7769435.stm