these people from phoenix and tucson gun groups know that government gun buy backs dont work in preventing crime and are a waste of tax dollars.so they staged their own anti-gun buy back across the street from this maricopa county gun buy back.
its nice to see the newspaper say that they were right and gun buy backs dont work.
But those opposing the buybacks may have studies and research on their side. Most studies, including one by the National Institute of Justice, show that the majority of people turning in guns are law-abiding adults.
Sunday, October 24, 1999
Arizona Republic
Section B, Page 1
Residents heed call for arms
220 weapons collected at buyback
By Laura Trujillo The Arizona Republic
The gun debate that obtain is played out on talk radio and newspaper editorial 'pages moved to a grassy comer in front of a south Phoenix church Saturday.
At one table stood Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, poster woman against gun violence, trading $50 grocery gift certificates for guns to be destroyed in a buyback.
Thirty feet away stood self-described gun safety advocates and National Rifle Association members who tried to persuade people to donate their guns to help teach gun safety classes.
The food coupons clearly were the bigger draw. Throughout the day, Wilcox collected 220 guns, and the others netted only 15.
Still, both groups called the day's effort a success, and their opposing views demonstrated the diverse opinions that residents hold on gun issues in a country where the availability of firearms and owners' rights are at the front of public debate.
Wilcox, holding her third gun buyback in three years, has President Clinton on her side. The president recently announced a $15 million gun buyback, giving cities money to hold similar programs across the country.
But those opposing the buybacks may have studies and research on their side. Most studies, including one by the National Institute of Justice, show that the majority of people turning in guns are law-abiding adults. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that two-thirds of those in a Seattle buyback program still owned other guns. Some even said they would use the $50 to buy new guns.
Still, gun buybacks are gaining in popularity as politicians struggle for ways to decrease gun violence in a day when a teenager can shoot his classmates to death at high school and when a police officer is shot by her husband in front of her young daughter. Incentives vary from city to city, from opera tickets in Oakland to cash in Washington, D.C., to table dances offered by a strip club in St. Louis (no one took the club up on the offer).
The gun debate wasn't on the minds of Forest and Maria Brown of Tempe on Saturday. They simply didn't want an old .22-caliber pistol, inherited from Maria's father, around the house anymore. Maria is six months pregnant.
"We just don't want a gun around the house with a child," said Maria, 30, a software engineer.
"This seemed like a good way to get rid of it," said Forest, also 30 and an electrical engineer.
The black Ruger took its place at a table filled with shotguns, hunting rifles, .357s, a .38 Special and numerous handguns at the buyback at St. Anthony's Church in Phoenix.
Carolyn Rhymes, 40, pulled a .38 derringer out of a plastic bag holding Pokemon cards and handmade lace handkerchiefs. She found the gun at her mother-in-law's house in storage.
"We didn't want to just throw it away in the alley or something," the 49-year-old Phoenix travel counselor said.
"Oh, that's good. That's the right thing to do," Wilcox said, handing Rhymes a gift certificate for $50 at Bashes'.
Next came Alice Harbert, 79, handing over a tiny, silver-and-pink, .25-caliber Lorcin handgun.
"My husband shot squirrels and rabbits back in Iowa when we needed the food," she said. "But he passed on, and I don't want it."
She said her neighbor occurred to buy it from her.
"But I said, 'You've got three little boys. No, you can't have it,' " said Harbert, of Glendale.
Wilcox knows that kids in gangs or criminals won't turn in guns, that most people dropping off their guns. haven't used them in years and simply want to get rid of them. She's read the studies saying that the buybacks don't affect rates of firearm injuries, deaths and crimes.
But Wilcox, who was shot in the pelvis by a would-be assassin in 1997 as she left a supervisors meeting, thinks the fewer guns there are, the better.
"I think every gun you can take out, you somehow affect how much violence is out there," she said.
At St. Anthony's and the buyback's second location at Victory Outreach in west Phoenix, Wilcox picked up 220 guns, including 120 handguns, two sawed-off shotguns and dozens of rifles.
As much as it is about getting guns off the street, Wilcox said the buyback is symbolic: "We have to show we care. If we don't do it, who will?"
Nearby, Carlos Alvarez, who tried to persuade people to donate their guns to his group to give to the Arizona Game and Fish Department. for hunter safety classes, said the buybacks are a waste of time.
"They trivialize the issue of gun safety. They think you can turn them in and solve crime," said Alvarez, who came up from Tucson for, the event.
Alvarez and about eight others collected 15 rifles. Half the people donated them, and the others traded them for gift certificates for grocery stores and for self-defense classes.
Nannette Weaver, a computer consultant whose husband, Tim, is an NRA instructor, says the buybacks encourage women to get rid of what she says is one of the few ways they can protect themselves.
"Unless you're a kickboxer, women are at a distinct disadvantage," she said.
Laura Trujillo can be reached at (602)444-8891 or at laura.trujillo@pni.com.