Nashmack
Member
Just found this in today's Boston Globe, you have to resgister to view the article on their website. They're giving out $200 gift cards to Target as the article states, I'm disappointed that it's Target and not Wal Mart, but whatever. I can still use a couple things Target sells.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ed...s/2006/06/01/gun_buybacks_a_shot_in_the_dark/
That's the link to the article, you need to register to view it.
Gun buybacks a shot in the dark
By Joan Vennochi, Globe Columnist | June 1, 2006
THE SUN WAS bright and the air was rife with good intentions, not to mention hip-hop music imploring the 'hood to ``Start Peace."
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Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino was announcing a gun-buyback program, under which people who turn in guns to police will receive $200 in Target gift cards. The goal is to cut street violence by reducing the number of guns on the streets.
I wanted to believe.
But as I scrawled notes during Tuesday's press conference at First Parish Church in Dorchester, a man standing nearby offered up this review: ``Good concept. It won't work." He declined to give his name, but said he did youth outreach work in the community. He doubted that many young people he knew would walk into a police station to turn in weapons.
Later in the day, the city recorded its 24th murder of 2006, when a gunman killed a man, execution-style, on Blue Hill Avenue. The victim got out of a gold Mercedes and put up his hands as if surrendering. But the gunman fired point-blank. Then, he fired one more time into the man now lying on the ground.
Does that sound like someone who is ready to give up his gun for a $200 gift card?
Research shows little drop in violence or shootings as a result of politically popular gun-buyback programs. More cities are relaunching them anyway. The theory is that one more gun off the streets is one less gun that can be used to shoot someone intentionally or accidentally.
``There is a tendency for researchers not to think highly of gun-buyback programs," said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Washington-based Police Executive Research Forum. ``But today the thinking is, when you can get the community, the police, and the private sector to participate, it's not the panacea, but it's one way everybody can work together." These programs, Wexler said, promote ``shared responsibility for the gun issue," and that's worth something beyond raw crime statistics.
Menino is doing his best to confront the culture of violence that is overtaking some of Boston's mostly black neighborhoods. It makes the mayor ``a lonely wolf," as he described it, running solo while the rest of the pack of politicians ignores inner-city shootings and deaths.
``Everybody should be concerned," said Menino, who observes, correctly, that there is more concern in Washington and elsewhere ``about bird flu than there is about violence in the city."
The problem is that bird flu may prove easier to control than violence in the city.
Last month, Menino and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg cohosted a ``gun summit" attended by 13 other big-city mayors. They pledged to track illegal guns, launch a website to share information and antiviolence strategies, and put together a plan to lobby officials in Washington for stricter gun laws.
The gun-buyback program is a throwback to an effort last undertaken in Boston more than a decade ago. Between 1993 and 1996, 2,800 guns were turned in to police, in exchange for $50 in cash for each weapon.
This time, the incentive is a gift card rather than cash, which some people previously used to purchase newer, better guns. No identification is required of people who hand in guns, and they will not be charged with possession. However, the weapons will be turned over to the police crime lab and traced for connection to past shootings.
Guns can be turned in, no questions asked, at any Boston police station between June 12 and July 14, Monday through Friday from noon to 7 p.m. Certain churches and community centers throughout the city are also designated drop-off locations. A person who wants to turn in a gun can also call 1-888-GUNTIPS to arrange for a private exchange.
Christopher Sumner, who heads the Boston TenPoint Coalition, described the program as ``an appeal to the soul" around responsibility.
``It's a piece of the puzzle," said Deric Quest, a member of the hip-hop group Four Peace, which sang at the mayor's press conference.
I want to believe it will help. But the puzzle is very complicated. And responsibility -- a key piece of it -- must be taught from birth, nurtured, and valued over time. It rarely strikes as a revelation, despite the best of intentions, on the sunniest of days.
Joan Vennochi's e-mail address is [email protected].
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ed...s/2006/06/01/gun_buybacks_a_shot_in_the_dark/
That's the link to the article, you need to register to view it.
now you can take that money and get a real gun.
