The Colombian example of "gun buyback"

With stories of "gun buy backs" recurringly appearing on our television screens I felt it appropriate timing to tell this little story about Colombia.

If this needs to be moved elsewhere, then it has to.

The nation of Colombia has been in civil unrest since the '50s. Currently, 3 State Department listed organizations operate in Colombia. The AUC, a vicious right wing paramilitary group. The other two are the FARC and ELN, left wing guerrilla groups.

In 2003, President Uribe began negotiations with the AUC with the goal of demobilizing the paramilitary organization's fighters. The two parties agreed that in return for demobilizing their troops and confessing to their crimes, paramilitary leaders would serve no more than eight years in prison. By March 2006, more than thirty thousand paramilitaries had demobilized and were receiving monthly pensions from the government under the Justice and Peace Law, which established the legal process for the demobilization.

...

Amnesty International reported in late 2005 that paramilitaries in Medellin were still active in the city's poor barrios almost two years after they had supposedly demobilized.

Leech, Gerry. Beyond Bogota. 2009. P163

What had happened was thirty one thousand people demobilized. Prior to the demobilization agreement being made there were reports that only 15,000 served in the AUC. Paramilitaries paid poor peasants to turn themselves in and give away guns supplied to them from the AUC. The AUC broke up into dozens of other organizations.

With more than 32,000 members demobilized, the AUC remained inactive as a formal
organization, but some former AUC paramilitaries continued to engage in criminal activities,
mostly drug trafficking, in newly emerging criminal organizations (known as BACRIM, Bandas
Criminales Emergentes).

www.fas.org...

That above quote would be what is in a Congressional Research document.


So what does it mean? Can this be duplicated in California. A corrupt city council pays the city bums to hand in old cop guns to the city council so the city journalists can claim the buyback program a success and politicians can claim they reduced crime.

Or imagine in the near future a version of the buyback program aimed at specific criminal organizations. How about whoever plays the role of the Nicaraguan contras in 2025. In this scenario the public eye views them as drug traffickers and the government views them as an asset. In a way to prove how many of them we can get off the street, we'd have a gun buy back program or a Justice and Peace Law.

Any criminal organization could pay off the poor to turn themselves in. Whether it be a gang supported by the CIA or hunted by the CIA,

But it must also be asked, is something like this happening now?

Get used to it America....it's time to change.

Yep time to change the goverment