What Happened at the Gun Turn In (Buyback) in New Orleans?

Most gun turn in events are political theater, designed to gather publicity, denigrate the ownership of guns, and promote the idea that guns have no legitimate utility.  For this reason, publicity is highly sought, pictures of guns turned in are prominently splashed across friendly media, and separate news “events” are created when guns are destroyed. 

All of this is pretty much standard practice by  those who conduct the political theater known by the propaganda term “buy back”.   You would think it would be even more true when someone is actively promoting a “buy back” as art.

But something different went on in New Orleans on 25 October, 2014, at a heavily promoted, private, “buy back” event.   $100,000 was donated to “buy back” guns in urban New Orleans, as part of an art event.   Supposedly, several hundred guns were turned in to be destroyed in a short three hours.   But, I have not seen a single picture of these turned in guns, read a single interview of a person turning in a gun, or found a single sentence explaining just how many guns were turned in.

Maybe this information is out there, and someone with better search engine skills than I can find it.   If you do, please send me a link.   Here is the closest description of the event that I have found, from the Advocate:

“It raises awareness. We’ve really tried hard to give people a safe place to make change without punishment,” Kaechele said as she perused the hundreds of guns that had piled up in the buyback part of the exhibit. After being displayed briefly, they were placed in garbage cans and rolled out the back door to be destroyed. “It’s an opportunity to trade killing for opportunity, and for the youth to find their voice,” she said.

There are many stories promoting the project, where Kirsha Kaechele is given $100,000 to create a private gun turn in event by her husband, David Walsh, described as an Australian professional gambler.   The couple was married in March of this year.   I wrote about the event as a possible source for good, inexpensive guns for private buyers.

Stories celebrating the project’s success, the numbers of guns collected, obligatory photographs of barrels of single shot shotguns, the odd AK-47 clone or SKS, or a table full of old pistols?  None that I have found. 

If any readers attended the event, I would love to hear a first person account.  The silence in the old media makes me curious as to what went on.   I wonder if the $100,000 donation gained David Walsh any tax benefit?

©2014 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
Link to Gun Watch