Gun owners will have the chance to trade in their unwanted firearms for cash or a skateboard at a gun buyback event in the Encanto neighborhood on Saturday.
The San Diego Police Department and the United African American Ministerial Action Council are offering $100 gift cards for rifles, shotguns and handguns and $100 cards for assault weapons. Participants may also opt for a custom skateboard, according to the department.
There is a “no questions asked policy” in regard to the guns, according to the SDPD.
Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman told KUSI the event is meant to provide people with a way to safely remove unwanted guns from their homes.
“Often they want to get rid of those guns and they don’t know how to do it,” she said.
The ministerial council got involved with the program about a decade ago after the murder of two teenagers with an aim of making the community a safer place for all, the Rev. Gerald W. Brown, the council’s executive director told KUSI.
“We wanted to be proactive, we wanted to do something different,” he said.
Carver Skateboards will be among the brands available at the buyback. The company has been involved since 2012 and first joined after the Sandy Hook shooting.
“We realized that we didn’t have to make a huge change to policy or culture, but could simply work in our own small corner and affect whomever we could reach,” founder Neil Carver told GrindTV.
The event begins at 8 a.m. at the Encanto Southern Baptist Church, 6020 Akins Ave.
All weapons traded in must be operational. Participants should not bring any explosives, ammunition or inert devices.
— City News Service