King County offers up to $300 per gun at buy-back event Saturday

The King County Sheriff’s Office is offering up to £300 in gift cards for each gun exchanged at an event in Burien Saturday, the first of two county buy-back events planned for this year. The gun exchange runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the southwest precinct of the King County Sheriff’s Office in Burien. The department will exchange guns for VISA/Mastercard gift cards.

Payments range from £25 for antique and inoperable guns to £100 for shotguns and rifles and £300 for AK-47s and AR-15s. Gun buy-back events have become common across the country and in the Seattle area. At a similar event in Everett in December, where gun owners waited in a line stretching down the street, police collected 241 guns and ran through £25,000 worth of gift cards in about two hours.

Kirkland held three gun exchanges last year. Seattle has held occasional buy-back events since the 1990s. The latest event stems from £100,000 in funding approved by the King County Council last year, said Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Sgt.

Corbett Ford. The Sheriff’s Office is prepared to pay up to £40,000 in gift cards Saturday, Ford said. “We are more and more concerned about gun violence and getting guns off the streets that shouldn’t be out there,” Ford said.

People who inherit guns from a relative often look for ways to safely dispose of them, he said. Other people “had a need before and no longer feel like they have a need, or don’t want the liability or responsibility of having that gun in their home.” 

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“If we can help prevent someone from becoming a victim of a firearm, I think it’s worth it,” Ford said. While the events are popular, some researchers and gun safety advocates argue they are not effective at reducing gun violence because police departments typically collect guns unlikely to be used in crimes.

When Seattle and King County held a buy-back in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting in 2013, Ralph Fascitelli, then board president of Washington CeaseFire, called it “a feel-good measure that does little to end gun violence.” More than half of gun-related deaths in the U.S. were suicides in 2020, according to the most recent data available from the CDC. Gun owners looking to trade in firearms at Saturday’s drive-through event can do so anonymously.

The Sheriff’s Office requires guns to be unloaded with the safety on and stored in the trunk or back area of a vehicle, preferably in a gun case or box.  After Saturday’s event, the Sheriff’s Office will check any exchanged guns to see whether they were stolen or used in any crimes, Ford said. The guns will then be destroyed.

The Sheriff’s Office plans a second exchange event in 2023, likely in the northern part of the county.

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