The Santa Barbara Police Department will be offering $100 grocery gift cards to gun owners who hand over their firearms — no questions asked.
The gift cards will be given May 12 from 8 a.m. to noon at the Earl Warren Showgrounds.
Local NBC affiliate KSBY reports that the Coalition Against Gun Violence is co-hosting the gun buyback. The $100 card will be for “functioning handguns, shotguns, and rifles.” A $200 card will be given for firearms listed as “assault weapons” in California.
Free gun locks will also be given away at the gun buyback.
Santa Barbara’s gun buyback was launched in 2014. The Santa Barbara Independent reports that a promise of anonymity for people turning in guns was a characteristic of the buyback from the get-go.
For example:
Police spokesperson Sgt. Riley Harwood said participants should drive to the buyback with their unloaded guns stored in the trunks of their cars. They’ll be directed into marked lanes in the showgrounds parking lot where officers will remove the guns themselves. Participants remain completely anonymous, Harwood went on, promising that no photos or videos will be taken of people or their cars.
Weapons collected in the buyback will be destroyed.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange