RICHMOND, Va. -- The City of Richmond is sharing what kinds of guns were collected at the city's first-ever gun buyback event over the weekend.
The city was hopeful the event would be a step towards curbing gun violence.
In just three and a half hours, the city collected nearly 500 guns.
- Five assault weapons
- 227 handguns
- 117 rifles or long guns
- 126 inoperable guns
The city handed out over $67,000 worth of gift cards in exchange for the weapons.
Gun expert Marlon Dance said of the guns collected, he saw a shotgun built in the 1800s, a couple of nice revolvers and a lot of low-end guns that he said don't work well.
“There’s very few guns in there that will even work. I didn’t see anything in there that you would think would be used in whatever type of crimes people would use them for firearms,” Dance said.
In a release, Richmond said the buyback event proves that residents have a desire to change the city's gun violence narrative.
They also shared the reasons why people said they were turning in their guns, ranging from the desire to have a gun-free home to getting rid of a parent's gun to because of the gun violence the city has been experiencing.
However, some people are skeptical about calling the event a success. Ralph Hodge, the pastor at Second Baptist South Richmond, said the city saw several shootings right after the event.
"I'm not sure it was a success. I mean, how are we gauging success?"
He said that the city needs to do something that is effective or has a high probability of reducing gun violence. Similar programs have been implemented in other cities across the country.
However, research into whether the efforts led to a reduction in gun violence remains unclear.
“When you take one gun off the street, you really don’t know how many lives you could have saved. What I know without a doubt is the probability of that gun taking someone’s life drops to zero when it’s surrendered,” Pati Navalta, an organizer for the event, said.
