The Patriot Post® · Boston Gun Buyback Program Not Exactly Hauling Them In

“We need people to know that the [city’s] gun buyback program is still in process,” Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh said recently. “We’ve never ended it. So we’re going to continue to push that out there, and having more information out there letting them know that the program is still in existence, it’s a good thing.” The reason he’s pushing the program in the media, however, is that the Boston Police Department has received a grand total of one (1) firearm so far this year. We suppose those $100 and $200 gift cards weren’t enticing enough. In 2014, the Boston PD netted more than 400 firearms in the buyback, but they were mostly old and nonfunctioning guns. Not exactly the ones gangbangers are using in drive-by shootings. That said, the Boston Herald reports, “Police have seized more than 400 firearms this year through arrests and other surrenders, putting them on target to meet, or top, the 651 they grabbed outside the buyback program last year.” Of course, it’s not a gun problem; it’s a culture problem. But there isn’t a buyback program for that. Undeterred, however, Walsh boasted, “The one gun that we took off the street this year through the gun buyback program — you never know what that gun would have been used for. Getting one gun off the street is effective.” That depends on your definition of “effective.”

Meanwhile, NBC News reports, “British artist Carl McCrow is asking the world’s most successful filmmakers to make an unambiguous pledge: For every gun that appears in their movies, he wants them to destroy a real one.” Put that with Boston’s program, and they might get two guns off the streets.