For some gun owners, the deal was too good to pass up: cash gift cards worth $200 to $400 for every firearm they turned over to the Stockton Police, no identification required.
But while the gun buyback event last weekend in a parking lot on Harrison Street was considered a success — officers collected 86 operable firearms for destruction — such programs remain controversial. The guns collected represent only a tiny fraction of those in circulation, and there’s nothing to stop an owner from going out and buying replacements.
Like many law enforcement agencies around the country, the department remains firmly committed to voluntary gun buybacks.
“The purpose of this event was to collect firearms that were no longer wanted, to prevent them from landing in the wrong hands and turning into crime guns if they are stolen during burglaries,” Officer Omer Edhah, a Stockton police spokesperson, said in a statement. “The majority of the firearms were legally owned. However, they were unwanted and had possibly been unsafely stored.”
Stockton Police paid out $17,800 for the guns turned in Sunday, the value of each weapon based on its type.
It was the fifth gun buyback in 2024. All together, the events brought in 592 firearms, Edhah said. Every weapon will be destroyed.
Though it’s hard to calculate gun ownership in a specific city, CalMatters reported in 2018 that an estimated 4.2 million Californians — about 14% of the population — own a firearm. And earlier this year, researchers at the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program noted that between 1996 and 2021, more than 5.2 million handguns and almost 2.9 million long guns were legally purchased in California.
Yet studies of gun buyback events cast doubt on their effectiveness.
“While the ultimate goal of most buyback programs is to reduce firearm violence and crime, few studies have demonstrated that these programs have such effects,” a 2023 report from the respected think tank RAND Corp., based in Santa Monica, concluded.
Even so, the report goes on to say the programs remain popular with the public and have the benefit of raising public awareness about firearms, especially as it pertains to safe storage.
The same debate about the effectiveness of gun buybacks played out in comments on the department’s Facebook page announcing last Sunday’s event.
One person called them a waste of money because “we all know they do nothing to reduce or stop crime.”
And several voiced support for gun ownership, rather than turning weapons in, including the belief that firearms should become more prevalent so citizens can defend themselves.
“Shame on SPD for encouraging people to DISARM themselves in the WORST period in US history,” wrote one.
Another penned, “Should be giving law abiding citizens free guns instead.”