A Minneapolis gun buyback program targeting weapons used in street crimes may be shooting blanks, as detractors said a Saturday collection mostly took in antiquated, unused or homemade arms from legal owners and did little to thin the firearm supply actually available to dangerous criminals.
Two Minneapolis locations collected about 150 firearms Saturday, but both exchanges were forced to shut down several hours early when officials ran out of Visa gift cards – $25,000 worth, The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
One person constructed a “shotgun” out of a piece of wood, some tape and a pipe. They were given a $100 gift card for the contraption. It appears that firearms users are following the Australian 'buy-back' scandal from a few years ago - and are making "guns" from rubbish just to hand them in for cash.
One anonymous gun owner said he received $200 in gift cards that he planned to use to buy a new firearm. That man said he didn’t think the program was serving its intended purpose.
“I just don’t feel that a criminal is going to come up to a fire department with a bunch of police around it and turn in a gun,” he said.
Marty K.
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