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Politics Government Entertainment Games

Mexico City Starts 'Games for Guns' Campaign 54

Posted by Zonk from the gaming-and-social-conciousness dept.
eldavojohn writes "Strange as it may sound, Mexico City is giving it their all in their efforts to crack down on gun related violence. The chief of police has 'announced that anyone prepared to surrender a high-calibre weapon, such as a machine gun, will receive a free computer in exchange. And, perhaps in the interests of scale and fair play, anyone turning in a smaller calibre handgun will be presented with either cash remuneration or an Xbox videogame console.'"
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Mexico City Starts 'Games for Guns' Campaign More

Mexico City Starts 'Games for Guns' Campaign

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  • Microsoft safe... for now (Score:3, Funny)

    by Clever7Devil ( 985356 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @05:40PM (#18550421)
    Notice how they'll only give you an XBox AFTER you hand in your weapons.

  • It doesn't stop there (Score:5, Funny)

    by L. VeGas ( 580015 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @05:49PM (#18550501) Homepage Journal
    Turn in a squirt gun. Get a Wii.

    Turn in a throwing knife. Get a calculator.

    Want a PS3? Just show up.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I thought that the program decided the value of your "reward" based on the caliber of the weapon you turned in, in which case a PS3 would require at least a fully functioning aircraft carrier.
  • Can I get a Thompson for my Core 2 Duo..?
  • They forget to mention that this computer is a community one that you can use in your prison cell for the next X years.
    • Hey! You stole my joke!

      Too true though. I had a friend who was arrested in Mexico for (long story short) not paying a bribe to a policeman. He was never charged. Another friend of mine bribed the officials to get him out of jail. The entire ordeal was off the books.

      A word to the wise: the police bribe was cheaper--you best pay up.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Dark Kenshin ( 764678 )

        Sorry, I should have used my backup joke then:

        Buy illegal weapons on the street: $100

        Trip to Mexico City: 20,000 Paco's

        Walking into a police station with an AK-47, and walking out with a new computer : Priceless

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dunbal ( 464142 )
      They also forgot to mention that the "computer" was either a 4MHz IBM-compatible AT with 256k RAM, or an Apple IIe with a 64Kb memory expansion card. Take your pick, señor.
  • Ah, but will they give away Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 [gamespot.com]

    But really, who would turn in a real high-calibre weapon for a lame virtual imitation? I know I wouldn't!
    • Because in Mexico, very few people can legaly own a gun. This campaign is obviously aimed at people who may have an illegal gun bought by a person with shady activities (read: the relatives of an ex-con, a burlgar, or a minor drug-dealer); or to the members of a family whose grandfather fought in the 1910 Revolution and have an old, usesless gun lying around the attic.

  • Sorry, Senor, you'll have to come back tomorrow. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30, 2007 @06:15PM (#18550785)
    Man it's gotta to suck to be working the electronics desk when they run out of consoles.
  • If somebody shoots someone, it's open season on the one who did the shooting with no repercussion. and that person gets to keep the others gun.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dunbal ( 464142 )
      If somebody shoots someone, it's open season on the one who did the shooting with no repercussion. and that person gets to keep the others gun.

            Sure. Then his brother comes after you. And your dad kills his brother. So the son kills your dad, and then your cousin kills the son, so the other cousin....

            Get it? There's a reason why a stop was put to vigilante behaviour.

  • This is brilliant! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @06:36PM (#18550979)
    This would be brilliant in America and is exactly why we will never have any sort of real uprising or revolution in the future. If the government believes they are at serious risk of all of us fat lazy idiots turning off American Idol, putting down our six dollar coffees and storming the offices to toss out a tyranny, they'll just offer us free consoles or televisions or something else in exchange for all of our guns. We're just that dumb to go for it, too.

    No rest until we have our freedom! No rest until we have our -- whoa, shit! Free GTA IV! Thanks guys!
    • Reminds me of the one episode of Pinky and the Brain where they actually were successful in taking over the world. Pinky and the Brain were up all night and made a paper mache copy of the earth. Then they gave away free t-shirts to anyone who agreed to move over to the fake earth. Of course everyone went after the free tshirts like sheep so Pinky and the Brain were left to rule the now empty real earth. Of course at the end of the episode they had to join the rest of civilization on the fake earth becau
  • Because it's cheaper to buy a high caliber gun and take the plane to Mexico City than to buy some of those overpriced consoles.

    • Re:Gonna buy me a machine gun... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Dimensio ( 311070 ) <[darkstar] [at] [iglou.com]> on Friday March 30, 2007 @06:58PM (#18551207)
      You're seriously telling me that paying the $200 tax stamp, undergoing a six month federal background check and paying over $10,000 (the least expensive "machine guns" start at that, because the supply of civillian-legal machine guns in the US is so low and never growing) is cheaper than buying a few games?

      I think that you've stretched hyperbole beyond credibility.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )
      I think you should buy the gun once you're in Mexico. It's easier to get by, it's cheaper and you won't get arrested for taking a GUN on the PLANE.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pluther ( 647209 )
      ...buy a high caliber gun and take the plane to Mexico City ...

      Uhhh... You probably want to do that in the opposite order.

  • ...that if I need a new box I just have to get a few Uzis and drive to Mexico? I'll remember that when I need an upgrade.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by crilla ( 1081983 )
      You get an pc/xbox for a normal weapon, what do you get for an rocket launcher or tank? A earth simlator :D
  • In 1998, Janet Reno warned, "There are now new criminals out there that don't have guns. They have computers and many have other weapons of mass destruction."

    http://news.com.com/2100-1023-208562.html [com.com]

  • Have it both ways? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Dekortage ( 697532 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @08:47PM (#18552099) Homepage

    FTA:

    The weapons-for-tech exchange program (which guarantees anonymity) launched this Tuesday... More than 100 computer systems were made available for the exchange program when it launched on Tuesday in Tepito, with each worth around $769 USD (8,500 pesos) and preinstalled with donated software from Microsoft.

    Which is it -- guaranteed anonymity, or software from Microsoft? C'mon now!!!

  • Gun buy-back programs DO NOT WORK (Score:5, Informative)

    by Scutter ( 18425 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @09:25PM (#18552361) Journal
    They have been consistently proven to be ineffective in reducing gun-related crime (leaving aside the severe penalties for possessing a weapon in Mexico).

    The bad guys don't want to turn in their guns. Not for a couple of Lakers tickets, not for an XBOX360 (that they probably already have anyway). Legitimate, legal gun owners are not about to hand over a gun that cost many hundreds of dollars for what amounts to a trinket.

    The only guns that get turned in are old junk that's rusting away in a closet, or some little old widow who's late husband had a gun and she doesn't know what to do with it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by macshit ( 157376 )
      The only guns that get turned in are old junk that's rusting away in a closet, or some little old widow who's late husband had a gun and she doesn't know what to do with it.

      That seems a worthwhile goal though. If a previously (more) lawless society, where every boy and girl had a gun as a matter of necessity, is changing into a (more) lawful and densely populated society, the random guns lying around the house can be a big problem.
  • Wouldn't you say that the resale price of a large caliber handgun is large enough that this could only possibly appeal to people who were trading in a stolen firearm?
    • Depends. If you want cheap junk HiPoint, Jennings, Lorcin, etc are all BRAND NEW at around $150. I wouldn't own one (as I said, junk), but they do, usually, fire. You can even get reliable surplus handguns for that price though (Makarovs, CZ-52's, and PA-63's). Those all go for $120-$180 and are actually decent guns, being surplus military and police sidearms from the 50's to the 80's timeframe.

  • What I always wonder (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ZorbaTHut ( 126196 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @10:46PM (#18552827) Homepage
    Are there any guns that they would accept which are cheaper than what they're giving out?

    It'd be awesome to buy a few dozen cheap guns and make a few thousand dollars of profit in xboxen.
  • Why is it, that when you say "Machine gun" I envision an MG-42 [wikipedia.org] being handed in.

    Or did you mean fully automatic weapons like an UZI [wikipedia.org] or an AK-47 [wikipedia.org]? Because there's a big difference between the two.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • When I read the headline, I thought it was actually the other way around--turn in your video games and get guns. Glad the article cleared that one up. I wouldn't go to Mexico ever again!

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