Published Thursday, June 3, 1999

Two groups compete for firearms Statewire

MILWAUKEE (AP) -- A civic anticrime effort to collect firearms this weekend is competing with an organization that offers higher prices and says people need to be armed as protection against a millennium bug crisis.

Police, businesses and hospitals in suburban Waukesha County are offering $50 gift certificates at variety stores for people who hand over their weapons Sunday at several collection sites.

An event called Y2K Family Preparedness Expo is offering $75 and free admission Friday and Saturday for working guns that are turned in at a county exposition center.

Exposition sponsors say the event can help people protect themselves next January when, as some computer experts fear, there are interruptions in public services when date-oriented software fails to make the switch from 1999 to the year 2000.

" Let the insanity reign, " Pewaukee Police Chief Ed Baumann said in response to the exposition' s offer.

Exposition organizer Chuck Ball declined to explain how the weapons might be distributed. They are intended, he said, as a safety measure if there is a crisis with Y2K, a term for " year 2000."

" I will keep weapons in the hands of responsible citizens who can protect themselves in any situation, whether it' s Y2K or anything else, " Ball said.

" A citizen' s right to protect himself is guaranteed in the Constitution and Y2K may involve civil unrest and lack of law enforcement, " exposition spokesman Jay Cunningham said.

" Why do you need a gun for the turn of the century?" Baumann said. " I hope somebody' s not just marketing fear and making a ton of money out of people who are embracing this stupidity."

Promoters of the Waukesha County Voluntary Gun Disposal Program said they hope their Sunday collection will be successful despite the competition of Ball' s group.

The anticrime collection at parking lots in Waukesha, Menomonee Falls and Mukwonago " serves a much better purpose than the panic and paranoia that the Y2K doomsdayers are generating, " program organizer John Wallschlaeger said.

The program collected 562 firearms in 1997.

Copyright 1999 Associated Press.

-- Lee (lplapin@hotmail.com), June 03, 1999

Answers

I live not too far (45 minutes north) from where this is taking place. What Mr. Baumann and others in his position need to understand is that the people who are going to be attending this seminar are neither "insare" nor "stupid" but people who are memebers of his and other communities in the area.

I'll feel a lot better when our elected officials stop alienating and patronizing those of us who think "there might be somethin' funky happenin' here..."

-- dan (dbuchner@logistics.calibersys.com), June 03, 1999.

$50. or $75. Sorry, but that wouldn't cover the cost of even my cheapest firearm. I think I'll keep mine. Wonder what a rabbit looks like with a .357 hole?

-- (cannot-say@this.time), June 03, 1999.

This is just f-ing brilliant.

Anyone stupid enough to disarm himself -- voluntarily, for money -- certainly ought to be unarmed & helpless when all the fun begins.

(OTOH: It's my understanding that many of the guns turned in at these things have been stolen for that purpose.... steal someone's gun, hand it in, get $75 towards a better gun. Not a bad afternoon's work.)

-- just (whos@kidding.whom), June 03, 1999.

I agree 100% with "Just":

Anyone stupid enough to turn in their firearm(s) doesn't deserve one.

OR, "Thers a sucker born every minute" and 9 others born willing to take advantage if him.

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), June 03, 1999.

These guns for bucks deals ain't so bad. What you do is round up all the worthless rusted & busted trash you can. trade it in and Bam, you got enough cash for a really nice useful weapon. Thats how these gun exhanges work....

-- kozak (kozak@formerusaf.guv), June 04, 1999.