Gun Owners Flock to Buyback at Fair Lawn Synagogue

The line stretched dozens of gun owners deep Sunday at Fair Lawn's Temple Beth Sholom, easily the busiest of the Bergen County Sheriff's Office's five second-day gun buyback locations.

"We were shutting down the other locations and moving the money here because consistently we had 50 to 100 people on line here in Fair Lawn," Sheriff's Office Inspector Mickey Bradley said.

Capt. Bob Kneer, who worked the Fair Lawn buyback, said he saw sellers surrender all shapes and sizes of firearms — from automatic pistols and rifles to 19th century antique shotguns.

"One woman actually said she had a loaded gun," Kneer said. "When we asked her to take it out and let us see it, it happened to be a water gun...People got a good laugh at that."

The 253 handguns, hunting rifles, shotguns and automatic weapons bought back in Fair Lawn accounted for nearly half of the 560 firearms collected across the county Sunday. When added to the 747 firearms turned in Saturday, the Sheriff's Office made off with a weekend haul of 1,307 guns and 55,000 rounds of ammunition.

"The last two days have been an overwhelming success," Sheriff's Office spokesman Richard Moriarty said. "We actually had to appeal to the prosecutor last night for more funds because we were running out of money very quickly."

The Bergen County Prosecutor's Office forked over more than $100,000 in forefeiture funds for guns this weekend, but even that wasn't enough to keep up with demand.

Fair Lawn's buyback center ran out of money about one hour before the event's scheduled end, prompting the sheriff's office to being issuing IOUs. Some would-be sellers dropped off their guns and exchanged contact information with the sheriff's office in anticipation of future reimbursement; others left with their guns still in tow.

Dave Jones, 69, actually made two trips to Temple Beth Sholom Sunday to turn in guns.

In the morning, he dropped off three target pistols — one of which was rejected because it was a pellet gun. He returned in the afternoon — just before the collection center ran out of cash – to sell off two .22-caliber rifles.

"The guns were just sitting at home doing nothing," said Jones, a hunter who prefers a bow and arrow to a gun these days. "I don’t need them laying in the house."

He said the convenience of the buyback — just 15 minutes from his home in Oakland — convinced him to participate.

Bob Toriello didn't even have to travel that far. The Fair Lawn resident turned in a 12-gauge double barrel shotgun that dates back to the 1800s.

"The gun was really serving no purpose," he said. "It was my grandfather's. I've had it for 60 years...This let me get rid of it."

The weekend's buyback brought in almost twice the number of firearms that sheriff's deputies collected during the county's first gun buyback in 2010.

The Sheriff's Office will show off its entire stockpile of collected weapons Tuesday at a noon photo-op at the Bureau of Criminal Investigation in Hackensack before the weapons are destroyed.

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