SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Police Department's Southeastern Division along with the District Attorney's office and the Jacobs Center hosted a gun buyback event for the community.
The buyback event is in an effort to allow people to turn in firearms they no longer need.
“It's a safe way for us to make sure that the guns are no longer out in our streets or in the hands of somebody that can cause harm,” San Diego Police Department Chief Scott Wahl said.
People dropping off their guns received a gift card or skateboard in exchange. CBS 8 poke to Bryan Blacksher, who decided to turn in an old gun after seeing the event on the Nextdoor App.
“If it's just laying around my house someone could come in and take it or whatever, and I wouldn't want that so I thought just why not get rid of it, I'm not using it,” Blacksher said.
In an effort to ensure these guns don't end up back on the streets, SDPD has a process they go through from the moment they are turned in.
“We will simply take them to our armory, they will eventually be melted down and we will be confiscating all the guns,” San Diego Police Department Southeastern division Captain Julie Epperson said.
Epperson told CBS 8 that since it's a no-questions-asked event the police department cannot connect these guns to past crimes.
“No they won't be because we won't be running the serial numbers on them or running any ballistic tests on them so no they will not be traced to any crimes at all,” Epperson said.
Paul Conry is a volunteer for San Diegans for Gun Violence Prevention. He was at Saturday's event dressed in orange to honor National Gun Violence Awareness weekend and handing out brochures to attendees.
“There's more firearms in the nation than there are actually people and you know, every year over 43,000 people are killed by guns in this country,” Conry said.
124 guns were turned in at the event with approximately three assault rifles, 40 small guns and 81 long guns.
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