Jonathan Polakoff

Gun buyback programs provide strong imagery.  There are usually guns all about: dozens, sometimes hundreds of them.  They fill shopping carts, flatbeds, and sometimes dump trucks.

The implication is clear.  These are guns that are no longer in the hands of criminals.  They have tags on them, and they are heading for destruction.  

But the program has its skeptics. 

This is an LA County Sheriff who has worked at Gifts for Guns events and asked to remain anonymous.

It's too simple. For all these crime guns that are associated with crimes, these guys are going and turning the gun in, getting a hundred or two-hundred dollars worth of gift cards and they never have to answer for the crimes they committed because the evidence is being destroyed.

Asked whether it is a frequent occurence, the Sheriff had this to say:

Yea, it is a frequent occurence, because you get guns that are obviously crime guns, just based on the appearance and the type of gun and the profile of the people surrendering the guns and you can't do anything.  You can't do anything; it's 100% anonymous.

Randy Herrst, the President of the Center for the Study of Crime in Torrance called the program a "public get out of jail free card."

The beauty of it from the criminal's point of view is that he turns it in, and that gun can no longer be used as evidence against him.  The problem is that those are crime guns that have already been used and now you're destroying their evidenciary value.

The LA Country Sheriff's Department confirmed that the guns that they collect are documented in an evidence ledger but not tested in a crime lab. 

The recurring emphasis from Sheriffs at the event was "getting the guns off the street."  "The street" encompasses more than an explicit sphere of crime.  It includes the homes of innocent gunowners who could have their firearms stolen and then used in a crime or an accident.

In May of this year, more guns were collected at an LA buy back than had been shootings in all of 2008, and their removal off the street is viewed by police as an intervention against future accidents and crimes. 

A New York Times travel article can offer you the trendiest cafes in Los Feliz Village.  It makes for a good article, considering that trendy cafes are one of the neighborhood's strong suits.