East Bay city to add gun buyback program in efforts to get firearms off streets

PITTSBURG — Pittsburg police have added one other software of their belt to assist stem violence and get weapons off the streets with a brand new buyback program.

The Metropolis Council accredited the $100,000 expenditure on Monday utilizing beforehand unbudgeted proceeds from the city-owned Pittsburg Energy Firm.

The final gun buyback applications in 2014 and 2016 have been successful, netting a complete of 300 weapons off Pittsburg streets, Police Chief Steve Albanese mentioned.

“The general objective of applications like that is to take away weapons off the road and out of our neighborhood,” the chief mentioned.

Beneath this system, police purchase again weapons residents now not need, exchanging them for present playing cards that can be utilized for fuel, meals, eating places and extra. Police will finally destroy the firearms, in accordance with officers.

This system “offers a protected and easy course of the place neighborhood members can promote or get rid of their undesirable firearms completely,” Albanese mentioned.

In some instances, they’re weapons {that a} member of the family inherits and are handed down from era to era, the chief mentioned. Some won’t even work. Police suggest to pay $200 for assault rifles or ghost weapons; $100 for handguns; rifles and shotguns; and $50 for inoperable firearms.

Moreover offering a easy option to get rid of weapons, the buyback program additionally goals to lift consciousness of the chance of firearms and to scale back their availability in Pittsburg and the encircling neighborhood, the police chief mentioned. He additionally famous an enormous element of this system will probably be training, educating the residents by means of social media in regards to the dangers and methods to safely retailer firearms.

Albanese famous this system is just like others held not too long ago within the Bay Space.

“San Mateo County, Marin County and Oakland all simply accomplished buyback applications in June. All have been very profitable, some with a bit bit increased numbers than others,” he mentioned. “The bottom quantity we noticed was 130 weapons from a kind of applications and the very best was 550. So fairly vital so far as serving to our communities out.”

Pittsburg’s program follows on the heels of a 90-day marketing campaign police started on June 1 to curb violent crimes and cut back gun violence, particularly. In the course of the particular enforcement operation, native police are teaming up with state and federal regulation enforcement businesses to get unlawful firearms off the streets, make felony arrests and curtail different felony exercise.

For the reason that marketing campaign started, 75 unlawful weapons have been taken off Pittsburg streets and out of the fingers of criminals, Albanese mentioned. “That’s nearly one a day daily,” the chief added.

Of these, 20 have been ghost weapons and 29 have been unregistered firearms. Of these arrested, 52% weren’t from Pittsburg, in accordance with Albanese.

Mayor Holland Barrett White mentioned although he was skeptical about whether or not the gun buyback program would assist cut back violent crime, “the price of doing nothing was far higher.”

“Once you see 75 recovered weapons, I feel that speaks volumes for the necessity of a program like this,” he mentioned. “It is a actually good place to begin.”

The council accredited the measure 4-0, with Councilwoman Merl Craft absent.

For extra info on the buyback program, verify the Pittsburg police Fb web page at https://www.fb.com/pittsburgpd the place police will probably be saying the buyback dates.