City plans a retooled buyback of guns
Exchange may offer gift cards instead of cash
By Suzanne Smalley, Globe Staff | April 15, 2006
The City of Boston and community groups plan to launch a gun buyback program as early as next month that may offer gift cards instead of cash to people who turn in weapons, community leaders and a police spokeswoman said yesterday.
The buyback program, the first such effort in a decade, is being designed to avoid some of the problems a similar program faced in the mid-1990s.
From 1993 through 1996, the city collected 2,800 guns by offering $50 for each weapon. While there was some evidence that the program took some of the targeted weapons off the street, criminologists who studied the program found that many of the guns were older and not the guns typically used in crimes. The program was abandoned as violent crime fell and as police and critics raised questions about its effectiveness.
This time, said community leaders involved in the planning, they will try to recruit more grass-roots groups that work with young people involved in crime. Police want the new campaign to use gift cards instead of cash; criminologists found that some people used the buyback money to buy newer guns.
Pending final approval from Mayor Thomas M. Menino, the city has made a preliminary pledge of about $25,000 for this year's campaign, said community leaders who have been planning the effort with City Hall. They hope the final amount will grow with private pledges from businesses, neighborhood groups, and others.
In addition, city officials plan to try to leverage the initial $25,000 by getting businesses to give significant discounts on gift cards to stores such as Target and Best Buy. Community leaders said the buyback program probably will offer gift cards of around $100 for each working gun.
The program is proposed as City Hall seeks answers to an alarming surge in firearm violence, in which 99 people were shot in Boston this year by April 6. The number of shootings has risen over last year, when there were the most shootings since 1995.
At the same time, police believe there are more guns on the street than in at least six years. Last year, police seized 797 guns, a 35 percent increase over 2004, and the number of seizures through the middle of March was up over last year.
Menino's office declined to comment yesterday, but Police Department spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll confirmed that officials have been meeting with community leaders to plan for a probable buyback debut next month.
''It's still in its conceptual phase," Driscoll said yesterday. ''Although we are well aware of the historical perspective of this program, both in favor and opposed, we know it is our responsibility to explore every possible avenue in our efforts to decrease violent crime."
Driscoll said that officials are trying to design a buyback program that weds the best aspects of the effort of the mid-1990s with fixes to the worst. She said officials still believe that offering amnesty to people turning in illegal guns is a good idea, while offering cash incentives for turning in guns is a bad idea.
''Cash awards were inappropriate," Driscoll said. She said officials are focusing on gift cards for guns as a ''way to ensure that incentives are being used for proper reasons."
Driscoll declined to discuss the $25,000 figure, saying, ''We are still actively exploring potential funding options, as well as soliciting corporate donations."
The effectiveness of gun buyback programs, which became popular across the country during the 1990s, has been questioned by criminologists who have concluded that few guns used in crime are turned in.
Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, found that a buyback program there had little impact on violent crime. In addition, many people used the cash rewards for new guns and others turned in guns they no longer used while holding onto other, more favored firearms, he said.
''Gun buybacks don't have much of an impact on crime, because they tend not to attract guns from the segment of the population most likely to use them in crime," Rosenfeld said. ''City officials know they are popular, they attract attention, and they can attract attention to the overall crime problem."
John Rosenthal, a close ally of the Boston police on efforts to fight violence and cofounder of the nonprofit Stop Handgun Violence, said he does not support buybacks because they don't work.
''I applaud the mayor's office and City Hall for trying to do anything and everything, but the sad reality is Boston Police, among the best law enforcement agencies in the country . . . are never going to stop the flow of crime guns into Boston or any other city across the country until there are uniform federal laws that restrict gun access to criminals," Rosenthal said.
However, Rosenthal said he is pleased that the city will not be giving out cash. ''In the past, kids would bring in cheap guns and would go out and buy a better gun," he said.
But community leaders helping to organize the buyback and make it an annual event said that they believe it can make a difference and that taking even a few guns off the street is worth it.
''Even if we take off five, 10 guns that stopped a shooting that could be potentially fatal, I think that we've succeeded," said Jesús Gerena, director of community development and organizing for the Hyde Square Task Force, a nonprofit that works on youth development in Jamaica Plain and Roxbury.
Jorge Martinez -- director of Project RIGHT, a Roxbury community organization, said the buyback program will include public service announcements. He said the program aims to persuade friends and relatives of criminals to turn in guns, as well as residents who know or discover so-called community guns: shared weapons that are used for crimes and then returned to a hiding place.
''We're not talking about the high-tech guns that criminals are going to be using," Martinez said. ''We know we won't get those folks to turn in their guns. That would be foolish. We're talking about mothers who find guns, youths who know where guns are."
Kathie Mainzer, a Jamaica Plain restaurant owner who helped launch the first gun buyback program more than a decade ago after a shooting on the playground of her daughter's school, said that many guns that appeared to be active were turned in the last time.
Michael Patrick MacDonald, who answered the hot line for that campaign and whose well-known book ''All Souls" chronicles life in South Boston, said he received calls asking where to turn in guns from street workers helping teenagers leave gangs and from former girlfriends of men in jail.
''It's really important to get the guns out of circulation, and it should be done every year," said Mainzer, who is helping city officials plan the new buyback. ''We want people to have an opportunity to safely get rid of a gun without turning it over to another 15-year-old or selling it, which happens."
Suzanne Smalley can be reached at [email protected].
Let it be known I'm offering $75 cash (no gift card nonsense) for anything in .44 magnum. Maybe I should stand to the door of this event with a sign?
Edit: Hmm... upon re-reading the article it looks like they're offering $100 instead of $50 this time around. Ok... I can play that game up to $125.
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), and M3 Grease Gun was turned in.
