Thomas MacMillan Photo
Gun buybacks don’t just save lives on the streets, said the mayor. They also save lives in the living room.
Mayor Toni Harp delivered that message during a Monday afternoon press conference to announce two summer gun buybacks.
New Haven police will collect guns at events on June 28 and July 12. The buybacks are part of a recent push to curb gun violence in the city.
Gun buybacks have a big impact on child safety and on domestic violence, the mayor said. Most guns collected in gun buybacks have been sitting around the home, where they might play a deadly role in a domestic fight, or where children could find them and hurt themselves, Harp said.
“As a 3rd-grader, one of my very best friends was killed by a legal gun,” Harp said. You may think you have your gun hidden away where a child can’t find it, she said, but “children know all the hiding places.”
This summer’s gun buyback events will be held between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on June 28 at the New Haven Police at 710 Sherman Ave., and at Radio Amor at 261 Portsea St. on July 12 between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. People can drop off guns anonymously, no questions asked. They will receive a $75 Stop & Shop or Target gift card for every handgun, shotgun or rifle, and a $150 for every assault weapon.
The events are sponsored by an $8,000 donation from Yale-New Haven Hospital.
Harp called the effort “a peaceful retaliation against urban violence.” Other city efforts include expanded youth activities, joint firefighter-cop patrols, and expanded community policing through “judicious use of overtime.”
Assistant Police Chief Luiz Casanova (pictured) said the New Haven police department has recovered about 900 guns since 2012, including 128 collected in the last gun buyback. Collected guns are subject to ballistics testing to see if they are connected to unsolved crimes, then they are handed over to the state to be destroyed, Casanova said.
The majority of guns taken in buybacks have not been used in a crime, Casanova said. Often they’ve simply been “laying idle.”
Asked about the effectiveness of gun buybacks, Casanova returned to the theme introduced by the mayor: the danger of kids finding guns in the home. “If we can save one kid’s life, it’s worth it.”
Gun buybacks popular but ineffective, experts say.
Buyback campaigns more often than not end up with hunting rifles or old revolvers from someone's attic than with automatic weapons that criminals might use, analysts say.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/12/gun-buybacks-popular-but-ineffective/1829165/