NEW YORK—Have an illegal gun? No need to blush about it—bring it to one of six churches in southern Brooklyn and get $200 in return.
The New York Police Department and Kings County District Attorney Charles J. Hynes are working with six Brooklyn pastors to hold a Gun Buyback day on Saturday, Sept. 13.
Organizers say that the first Gun Buyback, in July, took 697 guns off the streets of Brooklyn. It was such a success that they have scheduled a third Buyback in October.
Critics claim taht that gun buyback programs don’t work—that they merely provide gun dealers a way to sell their least favorite weapons for a high price. Other claims by critics of Gun Buyback programs say that there’s nothing stopping them from using the money to buy another illegal gun.
The Brooklyn Gun Buyback program works by giving gun owners a chance to dispose of their weapons and getting a little money in the process. According to organizers, the gun program gets guns off the streets.
People who, legally or illegally, own functioning handguns, rifles, and shotguns will be issued $200 Chase bank cards if they bring the weapons in to a participating Brooklyn church—no questions asked. Gun owners can receive a maximum of three bank cards. They can then use the cards as debit cards or cash them at an ATM.
A 2004 report by the National Research Council, part of the National Academy of Sciences, found that a typical buyback program yields less than one thousand guns and reduces the number of homicides by close to one-tenth per year.
