NPR: Gun Buybacks Don't Reduce Crime

[BigDaddyAl]

This morning I heard this story on NPR about the ineffectiveness of gun buybacks on preventing crime. While this is intuitive to most of us here, I was pleasantly surprised given the source.

SIMON: Do you expect any real criminals to turn in their guns?

RAEL: Well, in reality, probably not. Anyone who is serious about stealing a weapon and using it in a criminal act isn't likely to turn it in. But we do anticipate that there will be some weapons turned in by members of the general public who have either inherited weapons or are concerned about leaving weapons in their homes, loaded or unloaded, and just feel they no longer have any use for them.

SIMON: What do you think the evidence on gun buyback schemes is? Do they work?

VERNICK: Unfortunately, the evidence isn't very encouraging at all if one's goal is to reduce rates of street crime.

SIMON: Well, what do they do?

VERNICK: What we learned is that high risk people don't tend to participate. The folks who are at highest risk for being either a victim or perpetrator of gun violence are young males. But disproportionately, the people who participate in these buybacks tend to be older, they tend to be female.

On top of that, the guns that get turned in don't tend to be the high risk guns. The high risk guns for street crime tend to be newer; they tend to be high-caliber, semiautomatic pistols; they tend to be functional. The guns that disproportionately get turned in in buybacks tend to be older; they tend to be revolvers, lower caliber; and worst of all, often they're broken.

So there [isn't] good reason to expect unfortunately that these gun buyback programs are likely to reduce street crime.

(They have the word "is" in the last sentence I quote above on their printed transcript, but the professor clearly said "isn't" in the interview).

Link to full story.