Private donors step up to fund gun buybacks

There's been a noticeable increase in the number of gun buyback programs recently after the horrific shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

Many local communities, police forces and municipalities, still struggling with the economic downturn, have had trouble juggling their budgets to find funding for such events. But it appears that private donors are stepping up to fill the financial void, giving these cash-for-guns programs further momentum.

A recent buyback event in Bridgeport, Conn. -- not far from Sandy Hook -- was funded completely by $130,000 in private donations. CNN reports the Bridgeport government buyback program, subsidized by the city’s housing authority, was cancelled in 2011 due to a lack of funds.

But in the wake of Sandy Hook, the donations poured in from local businesses, organizations and private businesses.

Guns-for-cash events in Oakland and San Francisco, meanwhile, were funded by several non-profit organizations -- including a $100,000 donation from a local medical marijuana dispensary.

"It's part of the philosophy we practice called capitalism with a conscience," Keith Stephenson, the director of Oakland’s Purple Heart Patient Center, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

New Albany, Ind., recently held a gun buyback event funded, according to the city’s web site, by private donations and "money appropriated for quality of life initiatives."

Officials in Lansing, Mich., are re-launching a $10,000 gun buyback program completely through tax-deductable donations.

And Amazon (AMZN) recently donated $30,000 in gift cards to a gun buyback program in its hometown of Seattle -- part of $100,000 in private funds that have been given to the program, according to Business Insider.

But for all the good intentions, few people believe gun buyback programs alone will end gun violence.

A 2004 study by the National Research Council says most of the guns typically found at buyback events are old and malfunctioning -- or owned by individuals "who derive little value" from their possession, such as those who inherited guns. It also notes that replacement weapons are easily obtained and that armed criminals are unlikely to take part in such programs.

Mother Jones estimates nearly 5,700 guns were turned in at 27 post-Sandy Hook gun buyback events. But given civilians in the U.S. own an estimated 270 million guns, the buybacks are at best an optimistic start.

"Unfortunately, we'll still run out of money before we run out of guns," Oakland Police Capt. Ersie Joyner told the San Francisco Chronicle at his city’s recent buyback event. 

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