Gun Buybacks: Do They Make A Difference?

In a land with the 2nd Amendment, gun violence is something that affects us all.

The pervasiveness of guns in our culture has taken a sharp detour to the front of the American consciousness after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn.

But the Sandy Hook massacre is only one of many shootings, and it is not even the most recent. 

Montclair has joined the mounting chorus of government officials and citizens from Portland, Ore., to Portland, Maine, calling for a solution to gun violence and common sense gun legislation. 

Soon after the Sandy Hook massacre in December, nearly 100 Montclair residents gathered on Church Street for a candlelight vigil to remember the 20 children and seven adults slaughtered that day. 

More recently, Montclair officials worked around legislation and brought about a gun buy-back program last weekend that expanded to involve multiple nearby municipalities — including Newark — and collected more than 1,500 weapons.

In Montclair alone, more than 700 weapons were collected, according to the Montclair Times.

The gun buy-back was deemed a success by local officials, but do residents agree?

In a post about the gun buy-back program on Montclair Patch, residents expressed mixed feelings about it.

Commenter B Lurie wrote that the estimated population in Essex County with guns minimizes the success of the gun buy-back. 

The estimated population of Essex county NJ is approximately 785,137. Conservative counts estimate that the US has approximately 88 guns for every 100 residents. If you divide Essex County's population by 100 and then multiply that by 88 (the number of guns per 100 residents) the estimated number of guns in circulation in Essex county is somewhere around 690,921 give or take. If you consider the gun buyback program purchased 1,500 guns, the actual percentage of guns taken out of circulation in Essex county was roughly .002%.

That's 2 thounsandths of 1% of all the guns in the county that have been taken out of circulation. Can someone explain to me how by any measure, this effort can be deemed a success? ...

In other comments on the Patch and on other media sites, people argue gun buy-backs are useless or successful for a number of different reasons.

So in this ongoing thread, share your opinions, thoughts and concerns with the Patch about guns in your own neighborhood.