The right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in our Constitution. We have a right to obtain a firearm and to use it in any lawful manner. Yes, there are unlawful uses for guns even under the most strict interpretation of the Second Amendment you care to name. That's because the right to bear arms doesn't include the right to use it inappropriately.

But many people think guns are magic. They think the presence of guns is a terrible thing and that what we need are fewer guns.

To be sure, a lot of people don't want their guns anymore or figure that they shouldn't have them for personal reasons. I respect this and applaud those who are self-aware enough to know they shouldn't have them anymore. It's not easy, so I have a profound respect for those folks.

Yet there are others who don't think you should have guns.

And it seems that they labor under a lot of preconceptions.

It’s easier to get a gun in America than it is to get rid of a gun.

No, it's not. 

Unless, of course, you live in a universal background state and you just want to get rid of one temporarily.

In any state, you can take your gun to a gun dealer and say, "Sell this for me." Most stores will sell on consignment and some will just buy it from you for resale. Other states will allow you to sell it to a family member or even just some guy.

Getting rid of a gun is pretty easy.

We're not off to a great start on this, are we?

Between 2019 and 2021, Philadelphia organized more than 34 buyback events. But despite all that effort, Philadelphia recovered just over 1,000 firearms, none of which had been used in a crime.

So there are special programs that allow people to accept guns for almost no cost and it's harder to get rid of a gun than to buy one?

I mean, there's no background check to a buyback, no waiting periods, no anything. It sounds even easier to get rid of a gun than I originally stated.

What’s worse: A recent report from CBS News, the Trace, and Mother Jones found that police departments across the country have sold more than 87,000 firearms that had been used in the line of duty. And more than half of those resold weapons have ended up being later used in crimes.

That's not really getting rid of guns. That's simply transferring ownership of a gun.

And what isn't mentioned is how many of those guns were bought by a law-abiding citizen and then stolen prior to being used illegally. Funny how that never seems to come into play in this discussion.

Now, I'm not going to hit this paragraph by paragraph because, frankly, it's boring already. The author of this piece runs a non-profit where he turned guns into garden tools. We've heard about either this program or another. He's one of those who thinks that guns are magic and their mere existence will lead to violent crime. It's clear, though, that he doesn't mean individuals getting rid of guns he doesn't want. He means purging guns from our society.

Then, to make his case, he makes up crap such as this:

One family I met had just moved to Philadelphia, and had a family member who thought they needed an assault rifle, so he bought one and had it delivered to their house. It was literally dropped off on the porch, and they had no idea it was coming. They googled “How to get rid of a gun” and it pulled up us at RAWtools. I made them a piece of art for their kid’s room from the AR-15.

No, that didn't happen.

If it did, then someone committed a crime because you can't just place and order and have it left on your porch like an order from DoorDash.

This is an outright fabrication. Whether it was the author or the family that was lying is beyond me, but the family wouldn't really have any reason to lie to him, now would they?

The truth of the matter is that this is a person who thinks the problem with guns is that they exist and he can't just will them into oblivion. He also seems to think that guns are cursed objects that exert their own will on otherwise normal people, turning them violent.

Why else would he focus so much on making guns disappear?

Whatever guns he and groups like his do to destroy guns doesn't actually make a difference. We're still going to buy guns and we're not going to just roll over because someone who seems to have little affinity for the truth thinks we shouldn't have them.

This is good because guns are good things that allow millions of people to defend themselves. Don't like it? Tough.