You might want to skip this rant, and I might want to forget I ever wrote it!
When I was amassing my collection of guns, I knew what I was going to do with them. I was going to sell them off and use their value to supplement my meager income. Remember, due to the ways I earned a living, I don't have Social Security or any form of retirement. But due to the government’s infinite lack of wisdom, they have made it almost impossible for me to legally sell a gun, especially in Colorado, which used to be a state where gun ownership and their use were not only acceptable but encouraged. That has changed drastically over the years due to way too many California weenies moving to Denver and passing laws that turn honest people into criminals, and at the same time, treating criminals like honest people. Proving once again that bad will become good and good will become bad.
You're right about the wives of gun owners not wanting to deal with their husbands’ leftover guns; instead of a financial benefit, laws have turned those wives into potential criminals just trying to sell their late husbands’ guns.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have gone from being someone who knew the gun laws to someone who can't keep up with the gun laws anymore, even in my own state. So I'm just as flummoxed as anyone else as to how I'm going to deal with my remaining guns living in a state that just a few weeks ago passed even more restrictive gun laws that the Supreme Court ruled a few years ago is clearly unconstitutional.... And more than half the sheriffs in the state of Colorado have said they won't enforce the new laws.
So, about the only legal way to sell a gun nowadays is to find a local gun dealer who will transfer the firearm to the buyer’s dealer. And in certain states, like Colorado, that may not be good enough to sell "certain types" of firearms.
To get top dollar for a gun you need to expose it to a lot of people, especially if the gun is collectible, and the best way to do that is GunBroker.com I've sold several guns through them over the years and thousands of people will see your gun for sale, instead of a handful of people by selling it locally. But the gun still has to pass through your local gun dealer, who will send the gun to the buyer’s local gun dealer. All that will cost fees at your local gun dealer, fees at GunBroker, and at the buyer’s local dealer, so if the gun is worth less than $500, there's not much profit in it for the seller.
I find it rather odd that the crime rate was so low back when I was growing up, and yet everyone I knew had a gun of some kind, including us kids. I got my first .22 for my 13th birthday. Guns were sold in magazine ads, and you could buy a German Luger or an M1 carbine for $20 through the mail, and the postman would deliver it right to your door. Even the government sold surplus military guns through the mail.... So everyone had a gun, yet people weren't shooting each other. Something changed, and that "something" is politics in America.
theboondork
My little piece of heaven.
Going for a walk at Pete’s.
This is a very rare Bowlegged, Banded, Mountain Puffin. These BBMPs are seldom seen lower than the highest altitudes of the mountains. They are very poor flyers and normally can't get airborne unless they jump off the highest peaks and reach terminal velocity before their tiny wings allow them to fly. They don't live very long, usually dying trying to walk back up the mountain.