Cringe Ensues After Syracuse Police Claim Uzi Submachine Gun Handed Over At Buyback

I was recently accused of being anti-cop. Why? I guess because I don’t see the police as perfect. I recognize there are good cops, bad cops, and most are somewhere in between the two, just like in any other sizable group of people.

The problem is that some people like to diefy them, and with the anti-gun side, they act like they’re the gun experts in most ways. They’re the people we should totally default to listening to on everything.

And to be sure, there are some police officers who are bonafide experts on firearms, including how to identify and handle them. Most know what they’re likely to encounter at a crime scene or on a suspect’s person with acute detail in their communities, but many know little outside of that.

I bring this up because I came across a story from a buyback in Syracuse earlier today.

Now, I’d already written about a buyback today, and didn’t want to do it again, but I still read the story because it mentioned one firearm in particular, one you don’t see turned in every day.

Syracuse, N.Y. — People turned in 130 assault rifles Saturday at a gun buyback at St. Lucy’s Church, more than 3 times as many collected at a similar event two years ago.

One of those guns was an Uzi submachine gun, according to Syracuse police.

An Uzi? An actual Uzi submachine gun?

That’s something you don’t see every day, and if it’s a transferable gun that was lawfully owned, it’s an absolute shame to see it turned in somewhere that it will be destroyed.

Luckily, there are some pictures of some of the guns turned in, and that’s where things get stupid.

It was a little more for a single screenshot, all from the same publication linked above, but it was critical to show that this was the gun the reporter was told was a Uzi.

He was told it was a submachine gun.

That’s a MAC-10, though, not a Uzi.

While a MAC-10 might have a similar silhouette to a Micro Uzi, there are profound differences. This was pretty clear to me from the jump, and I’m not an expert at identifying every make and model of a gun on sight. I just can’t do it most of the time, but this was glaring.

It should be noted that MAC-10s were available in a semi-auto version that was easily available at one time and can still be lawfully purchased. At least you can unless the ATF decides to lie about it. So it might not be a submachine gun of any description at all.

Now, not to beat up this officer over a mistake–and yes, I do think it was a mistake or, if not, it better to give the benefit of the doubt here–this is the sort of thing shows a lot about how your average law enforcement officer isn’t all that well-versed in firearms. They shoot guns as part of their training, of course, and I’m sure they’re briefed on particular firearms that might represent a threat to them or the public, but when people quote them as if it’s the gospel truth, that’s simply not a great idea in many cases.

That’s true when Giffords quotes a law enforcement source while pushing their anti-gun agenda, and it’s true when some schlub on Facebook or X tries to tell you that they know they’re right because their father’s brother’s nephew’s former college roommate is a police officer and he said so.

This is a case of an officer who doesn’t remotely know what he’s talking about, but told the reporter what it supposedly was with some degree of authority, only to be wrong and probably wrong on multiple levels.

If pointing out that police officers can make mistakes somehow makes me anti-cop, then so be it.