After 16 years of organizing so-called “gun buybacks,” this year pediatric surgeon Mike Hirsh is attempting to take his event nationwide.
Unfortunately, with only nine events planned so far in the entire country, that appellation seems … ambitious, to say the least. The same could be said of the events’ funding mechanism, which seems to rely largely on public donations. In fact, in contrast with some buyback schemes’ offers of up to 125 percent of a gun’s market value, the organizers even admit that “a well-informed gun owner … could probably find more lucrative ways to sell their gun.”
But even if, despite all odds, the organizers of the Dec. 16 event wind up collecting some guns, that doesn’t mean the event will have succeeded in its mission of making a “tangible impact” by “remov[ing] dangerous guns from your community.” Studies have shown that such programs have little success in fighting violence—same as any program that results in fewer guns in the hands of the law-abiding.
