Stockton police’s first gun buyback of the year yielded a lot more than aged hunting rifles and rusty pistols.
Officers say that among the 113 firearms turned in at Saturday’s event were sawed-off shotguns, at least one assault rifle and a semiautomatic pistol.
“This event was a success, and our community is safer because of it,” Officer David Scott told Stocktonia in an email. “As a part of our gun-violence reduction strategy, allowing individuals to turn in their unwanted firearms voluntarily allows for responsible ownership so that these unwanted firearms do not end up in the wrong hands.”
The intake process of all guns turned in during the buyback was confidential, Stockton Police Capt. Anabel Morris said. All of the guns turned in are eventually destroyed, she added.
The haul included two semiautomatic rifles, one of which appears to be an AR-style assault weapon; three sawed-off shotguns; and several operable ghost guns, said Scott, a police spokesman. Ghost guns are typically homemade from kits or 3-D printed and sold over the internet. They lack serial numbers, making them the untraceable “ghosts” of the gun world. Ghost guns are favorites among those barred from owning firearms.
Just as worrisome as the ghost guns was a semiautomatic pistol that Scott described as resembling a TEC-9. The weapon uses a large-capacity ammunition clip — 32 rounds, more or less — and gained notoriety for its use in gang violence in the 1990s. TEC-9s were designed for military use as a submachine gun but were modified to make them legal semiautomatics for the U.S. civilian market. Besides becoming a symbol of organized street crime, they bulled their way into popular culture before being outlawed as part of the federal government’s short-lived assault weapons ban.
In Saturday’s buyback, in a parking lot at the Banner Island Ballpark, police offered up to $400 in cash gift cards for every working gun surrendered; guns that weren’t operational, as well as gun parts, also were accepted, although no money was offered for those items. The event resulted in a total payout of $24,000 by the department, Scott said.
Police did not ask for identification or the typical forms of paperwork during the event typically required when selling through traditional gun dealers. This makes for a short process that takes only a couple of minutes from start to finish, whereas selling to a licensed gun dealer could take longer. Because licensed dealers won’t accept illegal firearms, these police buyback events provide an anonymous service to the public, Scott said.
The majority of the guns collected were legally owned, police added. Scott noted that authorities are working to determine whether any of the firearms may have been used in the commission of a crime.
“If any of these firearms were to be stolen because they were not correctly stored or as a result of a burglary, they could easily be used in a violent crime that makes a community member or a local business and its employees a victim of a violent crime,” he added.
Authorities host the buyback events several times during the year, typically quarterly, although Morris said the cadence depends on how much funding the department has available to offer in exchange for the weapons. Last year, five gun buybacks resulted in almost 600 firearms destroyed by police.
“We want to make sure that we’re consistent and have an opportunity for all to gain access to us,” Morris said.