Jeff Thomas
New member
Lots of 'logic' to discuss here ... 
Regards from AZ
http://www.foxnews.com/national/112200/gun_buybacks_mand.sml
Gun Buybacks Are Back In Style
Wednesday, November 22, 2000 By Adrienne Mand
When violent crime was on the rise in the early 1990s, communities across America tried to get guns off the streets by asking people to turn in guns in exchange for money or food.
Lately, although violent crime is way down nationally, gun buyback programs are making a comeback.
Activists in Boston are considering reinstating a program to combat a local rise in gun violence. And the trend jumped to the federal level in the spring when the Department of Housing and Urban Development launched "BuyBack America" in 84 communities, which has netted more than 22,600 firearms since it began in April.
But critics say there is one catch with these programs: they don't work.
"They do very little good," said David Kennedy, a senior researcher at Harvard University's Kennedy School program in criminal justice. "The pool of guns that get turned in in buybacks are simply not the same guns that would otherwise have been used in crime."
There are several problems, Kennedy said. Many households that turn in a gun still have others at home, and some people say they'll use the money from the buyback to purchase a better gun. He likened the programs to "the toxic-waste pickup day or the Christmas-tree pickup day," rather than a crime deterrent.
And criminals usually aren't the ones lining up to cash in.
"If you look at the people who are turning in firearms, they are consistently the least crime-prone: older people and women," he said. "Younger people and folks who are at high risk for offending don't [participate] for the most part."
But others contend the programs can have an impact. Dr. Matthew Masiello, chair of pediatrics at Memorial Hospital in Johnstown, Pa., helped found the Pittsburgh Goods for Guns Antivolence Coalition in 1994. When it was formed, he said, city kids 5 and younger were more likely to die from a firearm than anything else.
The program collected more than 4,000 operable firearms, as well as non-working weapons and dozens of air guns. Though there was no direct link, by 1997 the Allegheny County Health Department found gunshot deaths had fallen significantly.
"They made the comment [that] the gun buyback program was a significant factor," Masiello said.
The Pittsburgh program went beyond the actual gun purchase to include community, religious and political leaders in an outreach effort. There were school sessions similar to the National Rifle Association's Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program, and the coalition distributed gun locks.
"Our emphasis was always the child," Masiello said. "It was not [that] we shouldn't have guns in the community because guns were terrible."
Perhaps more importantly, a survey of those who participated found 59 percent felt their homes were safer without the weapons present; 80 percent felt the city was made more aware of the issue of gun violence; and 79 percent felt they were doing something to make the city safer.
That's worth noting, said Richard Rosenfeld of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, who has studied buyback programs.
"They are not effective in reducing gun violence, gun homicide or gun assault," he said, but there are benefits.
He compared the programs to the sandbagging effort in St. Louis during the 1993 flood.
"There's not a lot of good evidence that those sandbagging efforts are terribly effective, but it reminded the community that it retained its strength and that it could overcome adversity."
Still, some say that practically speaking, gun violence is not thwarted.
"The guns that are turned in for these programs may not resemble the guns that are frequently used in crimes," said Michael Romero, a research associate at the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis.
In a study the group conducted, semi-automatic weapons made up about a third of those turned in, but "well over half" of handguns confiscated by police.
Masiello acknowledged that thugs were not well represented in the Pittsburgh project, but he said some of their weapons were.
"We really didn't have any gang members walk up," he said, "but we certainly had those types turned in — automatic weapons, sawed-off shotguns, Saturday night specials."
And HUD contends any progress is good.
"HUD's BuyBack America campaign saves lives by taking unwanted guns out of circulation," said a department spokesperson. "Guns create tragedies every day in America, but our successful buybacks, which have exceeded our expectations, have taken away thousands of opportunities for those tragedies to occur."
As support for gun buybacks experiences a rebirth, Rosenfeld said, they should not be viewed as a panacea.
"People should simply keep in mind what their goals are. If it's reducing violence, it's not going to have an effect," he said.
"If it's longer term, I think it's helpful, especially for people who reside in areas with very high levels of gun violence," added Rosenfeld, "to see that the larger community is trying to do something."
Regards from AZ