Massive response overwhelms Seattle's gun buy-back
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SEATTLE - The city's first gun buy-back program in 20 years was a victim of its own success Saturday - turning away people more than three hours early after a huge turnout used up all the gift certificates available.
But police said no one should fret if they didn't make it to Saturday's buy-back because others are planned for the near future.
A huge crowd of hundreds of people flocked to the special buy-back program, creating a traffic jam in downtown Seattle as people eager to exchange their weapons for gift cards made their way to the drop-off site under Interstate 5.
KOMO News reporter Mark Miller, at the scene, said several hundred gun owners showed up to turn in their weapons and receive the gift certificates in return.
The massive turnout clogged traffic on Sixth Avenue and on an I-5 off-ramp leading to the buy-back area, located in a parking lot underneath the freeway between James and Cherry streets.
Scalpers offering cash for guns held up signs on surrounding streets, trying to tempt gun owners before they reached the official drop-off point.
The buy-back originally was scheduled to continue through 3 p.m. But at 11:45 a.m., police were forced to turn away anyone who wasn't already in line as they started running low on gift cards.
Participants received a gift card worth up to $100 for each handgun, rifle or shotgun turned in. Assault weapons could be worth twice as much. And additional gift cards were given for high-capacity magazines that come with the guns.
The objective of the buy-back is to reduce gun violence.
"If we can prevent just one child, one innocent bystander, from being the victim of a random accident or the target of an unstable person, it will be well worth our time and effort," says King County Executive Dow Constantine.
But not everyone is convinced the tactic will work - they say criminals with guns are in no rush to turn them in. And in fact, statistics show a previous effort in Seattle failed to prevent shootings.
The last time a buy-back program was held in Seattle - in 1992 - about 1,100 weapons were turned in. But in the six months that followed, the average number of firearms-related homicides increased. The mean number of firearms-related assaults in Seattle also increased, as did the mean number of robberies with guns. Even the average number of accidental shooting deaths more than doubled, according to data in a government journal.
Most of the weapons turned in Saturday were rifles - although some were old or no longer operational. But there one or two assault weapons. The most unusual weapon turned in was a military surface-to-air missile launcher, a single-use military device that had already been fired and was no longer functional. The owner turned it in and received a gift card.
David Daily, a gun owner who came to the buy-back, said he turned in two rifles because he has inherited several guns over the past couple of years and has no need for so many. He wants to make sure none of the weapons wind up in the wrong hands.
"For me this is the short way to know that the guns I don't want are safely disposed of," he says. "I would never want one of my guns to be stolen or sold to a private dealer and end up in the hands of a criminal."
Once the guns are collected, police plan to check serial numbers to see if any are stolen. If so, they will not contact the person who turned in the weapon. Instead, they will contact the gun's registered owner and see if that person wants their firearm returned to them or destroyed.
Nearly $120,000 was raised to buy back the weapons and ammunition by the Seattle Police Foundation, nonprofits, the University of Washington Medical Center, private businesses such as Amazon.
A program supported by Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll, known as "A Better Seattle," also donated $10,000 to back the effort to get weapons off the streets.
But police said no one should fret if they didn't make it to Saturday's buy-back because others are planned for the near future.
A huge crowd of hundreds of people flocked to the special buy-back program, creating a traffic jam in downtown Seattle as people eager to exchange their weapons for gift cards made their way to the drop-off site under Interstate 5.
KOMO News reporter Mark Miller, at the scene, said several hundred gun owners showed up to turn in their weapons and receive the gift certificates in return.
The massive turnout clogged traffic on Sixth Avenue and on an I-5 off-ramp leading to the buy-back area, located in a parking lot underneath the freeway between James and Cherry streets.
Scalpers offering cash for guns held up signs on surrounding streets, trying to tempt gun owners before they reached the official drop-off point.
The buy-back originally was scheduled to continue through 3 p.m. But at 11:45 a.m., police were forced to turn away anyone who wasn't already in line as they started running low on gift cards.
Participants received a gift card worth up to $100 for each handgun, rifle or shotgun turned in. Assault weapons could be worth twice as much. And additional gift cards were given for high-capacity magazines that come with the guns.
The objective of the buy-back is to reduce gun violence.
"If we can prevent just one child, one innocent bystander, from being the victim of a random accident or the target of an unstable person, it will be well worth our time and effort," says King County Executive Dow Constantine.
But not everyone is convinced the tactic will work - they say criminals with guns are in no rush to turn them in. And in fact, statistics show a previous effort in Seattle failed to prevent shootings.
The last time a buy-back program was held in Seattle - in 1992 - about 1,100 weapons were turned in. But in the six months that followed, the average number of firearms-related homicides increased. The mean number of firearms-related assaults in Seattle also increased, as did the mean number of robberies with guns. Even the average number of accidental shooting deaths more than doubled, according to data in a government journal.
Most of the weapons turned in Saturday were rifles - although some were old or no longer operational. But there one or two assault weapons. The most unusual weapon turned in was a military surface-to-air missile launcher, a single-use military device that had already been fired and was no longer functional. The owner turned it in and received a gift card.
David Daily, a gun owner who came to the buy-back, said he turned in two rifles because he has inherited several guns over the past couple of years and has no need for so many. He wants to make sure none of the weapons wind up in the wrong hands.
"For me this is the short way to know that the guns I don't want are safely disposed of," he says. "I would never want one of my guns to be stolen or sold to a private dealer and end up in the hands of a criminal."
Once the guns are collected, police plan to check serial numbers to see if any are stolen. If so, they will not contact the person who turned in the weapon. Instead, they will contact the gun's registered owner and see if that person wants their firearm returned to them or destroyed.
Nearly $120,000 was raised to buy back the weapons and ammunition by the Seattle Police Foundation, nonprofits, the University of Washington Medical Center, private businesses such as Amazon.
A program supported by Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll, known as "A Better Seattle," also donated $10,000 to back the effort to get weapons off the streets.
Chicken Little and the sky is falling. $100 bucks for throwing away your right the the founding fathers of the counrty fought for? I will go give a sperm sample for that amount and keep my rights.
If only they included a big "MY HOUSE IS GUN-FREE" lawn sign with each turn-in . . .
sad.. sad.. sick people.. throwing away their freedom and ours.. for only a $100 bucks when they can easily get more money for them...
I makes me sick to think of people turning in collectible significant historical artifacts in their ignorance to be lost forever by destruction fter one of these useless buy back programs.. That "old gun" that is turned in may be a rare old piece worth hundreds or thousands of dollars in the collectible market.
Before turning in any gun check it's value by googling the markings you find on the receiver and/or the barrel. Get the maker name and model at least. Grandpa's old gun could get a lot more than a measly $100. gift cert.
And then suddenly everyone remembered they can't buy crack with a gift card.Â
I would say a few hundred is really not "massive" as the headline reads. Hey, if I had an old unworkable gun I'd sell it to the fools who are willing to pay for it with taxpayer money. Isn't it interesting almost 1/2 million people marched in Wash DC to support "life" and almost no news. It just does not fit the news media's bias such as the aforementioned headline.Â
I'll bet the bulk of these guns are rusty, broken, cheap and useless. Doubtless there are some nominally functional ones in the mix, but they'll be few and far between.  I doubt someone's going to go trade a rifle worth $1000 for a gift certificate worth $100.
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C'mon KATU... you routinely show closeups of guns when the cops conficate them (or for any other reason) so where are the close ups of these buy-back guns?
Gun crazies: read 'em and weep. Jig's up. Guns just aren't cool anymore. Prepare to be ostracized for your pitiful, pathetic, backwards views.
@correct Oh it will be cool again very soon. When the supposed leader of this free nation tells the world that our foundation, the Constitution, is a living, moving, flexible, document, then the need for cool things like guns is coming soon. How's that living, moving, flexible foundation for your house working out for you?
 @correct We sell our old inherited and broken guns to you liberal simpleton taxpayers, and we buy magazines and ammo with the money, fool.  Ostracize that.
That's ok, I smoke so I know what it's like. Plus, YOU get to enjoy your slavery when they start coming into your home and searching it without a warrant or even probable cause. Enjoy!!!
 @disgustedman It's only important to them if they lose the First Amendment, not the Second.Â
Stupidity......
 @Kraut  @disgustedman Arms-control has been tried countless times throughout history.  A couple thousand years of liberty/tyranny/slavery cycles show a direct correlation to the bearing of arms and all other freedoms.Â
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How can supposedly educated and intelligent people believe it will somehow be different THIS TIME?Â
Well I'm 50 years old and I have never, ever once in my life needed to shoot anybody with a gun. I don't think I ever will. But so many people are cowards, they need a gun to feel big, and strong, and protected, even though statistics show that most gun owners only use a gun for one thing - to shoot themselves in the head at the end of their pitiful cowardly lives. Â
 @The Voice of Reason I've never HAD to use a fire extinguisher either. But I train on them regularly (for work) I have several big red ones throughout the house - hoping I never have the need to use one. Does that make me a coward, too?
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I guess if (when) your wife and/or daughter has been brutally raped at while you were helplessly forced to watch, you can explain to her that you did everything you could to protect her and that police were just a phone call away.
Â
As for my cowardly self, there's a better than average chance that my explanation will be slightly different than yours.
@The Voice of Reason I bet you'd look real manly in a fetal position should an armed thug break into your house and start assaulting your family.
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 @The Voice of Reason Don't worry, you've called the cops before and you know they're coming to help with guns.  Make sure you remind them what cowards they are. Hey, why don't you go down to the Ronald Reagan Federal Building in Portland, walk right up to the armed security standing at the entrance near the day care facility, and tell them they're cowards who need a gun to feel big, strong and protected, even though statistics blahblahblah....   You must be a shill for the NRA because your rhetoric is so f----ng dumb that only a plant would say stuff that stupid.
 @The Voice of Reason <---------- Here was the first lie you ever said on this site, glaring and ominous.Â
 @The Voice of Reason Did those statistics come from your AARP magazine, or from PERS Monthly?
 @The Voice of Reason As a whining liberal, aren't you required to support suicide? What the HELL business is it of yours if someone wants to check out with a gun THEY bought with THEIR money? I can think of at least one person you need to shoot with a gun-just do us a favor!
@The Voice of Reason --- better get back on your meds.
 @The Voice of Reason  Like you, I have never found it necessary to use a gun to defend myself against anyone and I sincerely hope that I never have to. But, unlike you, I shall reserve for myself the right and ability to do so.
 @The Voice of Reason Alright, who taught the trolls how to use the internet.
Wonder what part of his body he pulled his statistics from..............
Just reach for it! LOL
 @HenryBowman  @TreeWizard Leupold should research rectal optics so that gun-grabbers with their heads up their tailpipes can still see out.
 @TreeWizard I've always thought I missed my calling...
 @HenryBowman Why are you not teaching anatomy?
 @TreeWizard I believe that the basic anatomical make-up of anti-gun trolls is a void surrounded by a sphincter. Many may even be found to have craniums tucked away in the void.
I don't know troll anatomy, sorry.
STUPID STUPID PEOPLE!!!  It's the law abiding citizens that were turning in their guns at (more stupidity) less than saleable value. Do you really think criminals that need and want guns were turning theirs in?? Are the guns of law abiding citizens going to just jump up, run out, and commit some sort of heinous crime? Hell NO!! But you can be damn sure the criminals kept theirs and are smirking at the now more gunless homes to facilitate their break-ins without resistance. God people, how can you be so damned stupid!!!
If I remember correctly over the years guns from buy back programs or evidence lockers show up on the streets again. Wouldn't be surprised that these gun get used by undercover cops like confiscated vehicles. Lots of publicity, lots of feel good measures that will have zero effect on gun violence. Widows maybe getting rid of that dirty old gun.
 @The Resistance I don't know what you're remembering, maybe it was all those tv shows you watch. I doubt that you'll find undercover officers with a rusted out 22 that doesn't work that they got from the gun buy back program. If it prevents even one person from getting shot, then it will have more than zero effect on gun violence. Â
@The Voice of Reason----- And for those who keep bringing up Australia...... Buyback guns in hands of outlaws A NETWORK of firearms dealers has rorted the $600 million national guns buyback scheme, and weapons supposedly destroyed years ago have resurfaced in criminal hands in NSW. The Herald can reveal that at least two of the so-called "phantom guns" - both pistols written off by the Queensland Firearms Registry - have been fired at the scene of separate unsolved robberies in Sydney in the past six months. Police believe there are hundreds more like them.
@The Voice of Reason ----and finally, you were saying what? 500 guns missing from TX police evidence room in 'illegal firearms trafficking scheme' Having written several posts about sloppy practices and corruption in police evidence rooms, color me unsurprised and unamused to discover another SNAFU out of Cleveland in Liberty County (in southeast Texas), recorded by AP Feb 24: A federal investigation is under way to determine whether some 500 weapons missing from a police department's evidence room are part of an illegal firearms-trafficking scheme. The guns were discovered missing from the Cleveland Police Department's evidence room during an inventory last year, the Houston Chronicle reported Wednesday. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives declined to discuss the probe, saying it is an ongoing investigation. Court records show ATF agents recovered 112 of the missing guns while executing a search warrant at a Humble gun shop. How can one avoid the conclusion that some cop(s) stole hundreds of guns and sold them to gun shops and God knows who else? According to another AP report: Court documents connect Capt. Harold Kelley of the Liberty County sheriff's department and others to a gun-trafficking scheme. As custodian of the police department's evidence room, Kelley possessed one of two keys. The other key was held by Henry Patterson, who was serving at the time as Cleveland's assistant police chief.
@The Voice of Reason ----- ASHEVILLE â Police have lost track of at least 27 guns seized as evidence, along with dozens of packages of cash and drugs, according to audit findings released Monday. The Police Department audit â and a separate case in which 397 pills of the prescription painkiller oxycodone pills were discovered missing â have triggered a review of all 13,889 evidence room items deemed high-risk, authorities said. The audit sampled about 10 percent of items logged as evidence from as far back as 1993. Police ordered the review after the city's longtime evidence room manager was disciplined in January for unspecified reasons and resigned 31 days later. The missing items could derail an untold number of criminal cases and will at the least delay thousands of court proceedings, Buncombe County District Attorney Ron Moore said. It also will cause the release on bond of dozens of people being held on weapons and other charges, he said. With the evidence room sealed during the investigation, prosecutors do not have access to existing evidence to use in court. Moore released the results of the sample audit Monday in a memo to all defense attorneys practicing in Buncombe County. In the memo, Moore simply noted that he was attaching a letter he received from Police Chief Bill Hogan at 4:45 p.m. Friday. He also included letters from the auditor â former Asheville police Maj. Ross Robinson, an instructor with the N.C. Justice Academy â to Hogan. âAnd there are some disturbing numbers in that memo,â Moore said. Of 1,097 guns, drugs and packets of money and valuables sampled, 115 items are unaccounted for, Robinson said in the letter to Hogan. That broke down to 34 packets of money and valuables, 27 guns and 54 containers of drugs. âObviously, we have not accounted for all the items we were looking for,â Robinson said in the letter. He did not give more details, including the type of missing guns and drugs. Hogan said the sample audit results did not necessarily mean the guns or drugs were back on the street. Robinson originally noted 161 items missing, including 46 guns, but some were later found.
@The Voice of Reason ---Soon after news broke of the breach, the city launched an investigation. That investigation is now complete, but when Target 7 asked for the results, we were stonewalled. "We cannot disclose anything that's been discovered in the process, and we may never be able to," Sunport spokesman Dan Jiron said. âThere may be portions that can be released, there may be portions that cannot." For instance, Jiron said the report may reveal some of the Sunportâs top-secret security measures. But not only is the Sunport not releasing the investigation details, they wonât even reveal what agency did the investigation or how much it cost taxpayers. âTo release anything at this point could jeopardize the integrity of the entire investigation,â Jiron said. âAgain, anything that is part of attorney client work product is not releasable at this point.â That explanation doesn't sit well with traveler Kacy Clement. âI feel as if we paid for it, we should know what's going on or they may be hiding something else we should know about,â Clement said. Because of this breach, the evidence room at the Sunport is no longer in use now. All current and future evidence seized at the Sunport will now be stored at the Albuquerque Police Department. Read more: http://www.koat.com/news/new-mexico/albuquerque/Results-of-evidence-room-investigation-secret/-/9153728/17656050/-/9oybpjz/-/index.html#ixzz2JA3tDRCo
The sheeple in Seattle actually bought into this outright thinly disguised gun-grab?Â
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 @Fed up Fed  @theobserver Can you use that $100 on anything?
 @TreeWizard  @Fed up Fed  @theobserver Just trade the gift card for cash. You might get 80 cents on the dollar for it, but, whatever.You KNOW that there are criminals out there willing to steal guns for $100 gift cards.
 @TreeWizard  @Fed up Fed  @theobserver AMMO! ;>
It means they are all idiots. Grandpas double barrel shotgun has little value gang wise..... Oh well their loss.
 @Fed up Fed  @theobserver Ya, originally I thought it was anything, but that gift card part really threw me off.
Damn, I have a bunch of old defective pistols and family relics I could have offloaded for cheap, and immediately stocked up on high-capacity magazines and 7.62x39. Good job, gun grabbers. A lot of good ol' boys offloaded their unsellable or unreliable slag so they can go upgrade their semiautomatics in preparation for supply shortages.
I wonder how many gang bangers turned in their guns?
An educated guess would be 0.
Wait, since the evil bubble guns and paper guns are banned in schools now, could someone have turned them in for $100 each?
 @HuskyKMA No, those are EXTREMELY dangerous to the KIDS so they will give you $400.
 @TreeWizard  @HuskyKMA You guys are SOOOO funny. Btw, we are still going to take your gunz. :)
 @lakeview  @TreeWizard  @HuskyKMA  When B'ho develops charisma and charm, then I'll be concerned about your scenario...
 @lakeview  @HuskyKMA Good luck, I maybe transfixed, but my 20lb. guard cat won't be.
 @TreeWizard  @HuskyKMA When Obama knocks on your door, his charisma and charm will have you transfixed, and then I will take them!Â
 @lakeview  @HuskyKMA We are still not going to give them to you. =)