Gift cards for guns? That’s how the Rockville Police Department gathered unwanted firearms in their third annual gun buyback event at Red Gate Park in Maryland on Saturday morning.
Cars started lining up an hour before the event kicked off. When officers started receiving the guns, no one got out of their car. Instead, they just popped open their trunk and then received either a $100 Visa gift card for functioning rifles, pistols or shotguns and a $200 Visa gift card for AR and AK style rifles as well as “ghost guns.”
“This event is anonymous,” Rockville Police Chief Victor Brito said, describing the no-questions-asked event.
Firearms instructors with the police department wearing red shirts handled all of the firearms at the event. After taking them from the cars and making sure they were unloaded and functioning, they would log their make, model and serial number and then place them in wooden crates.
“There are so many households that do have firearms from relatives that have passed away, relatives that have moved away or have developed maybe physical or mental illness, and they have this gun that may have been sitting in their house for years, they don’t know what to do with it,” Rockville Police Lt. William Nieberding said.
And because of that, they collected a vast assortment, from AR-15s and Chinese SKSs, to a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun and a German Luger.
“We’re seeing guns that are 50, 60 and 70 years old,” said Nieberding.
By Monday, all the guns will be transferred and dropped in an incinerator to be permanently destroyed.
“Every handgun that we remove from the streets that are voluntary turned into us, every one of them has the propensity to be involved in a serious crime, domestic violence incident, suicide or used by a child unintentionally,” Brito said as the reason for holding the event.
Over the last two years, they have collected around 600 guns at these events.
In April, over 100 guns were turned in during a gun buyback event in Germantown.
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