No Questions Asked - San Francisco Gun Buyback Event Set For Saturday
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- A gun buyback event happening Saturday in San Francisco will provide an opportunity for anyone looking to turn in their weapons in exchange for money -- no questions asked.
The event is being put on by the San Francisco-based community organization United Playaz and aims to get guns off city streets and out of communities.
The gun buyback will go from 8 a.m. to noon at United Playaz, located at 1038 Howard St. People turning in handguns can receive $100 while people turning in assault weapons can get $200.
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"Our whole mission is to end senseless gun violence," United Playaz founder and executive director Rudy Corpuz said Tuesday at the United Playaz office. "I'm a survivor of gun violence and I am highly against gun violence."
Several city officials also showed up to show their support for the upcoming event.
"So many of us have been impacted by gun violence over the years," said Mayor London Breed. "The reason why I got into public service has everything to do with the people that I lost over the years to gun violence.
"I think about the over a thousand guns that United Playaz has collected and gotten off the street and, in my mind, that's a thousand people who are still alive because those guns aren't on the streets," Breed said.
"I think about so many people, mostly a lot of African American men whose lives have been taken away much too soon. And I know we are better than this. I know that when we come together we can create change," she said.
"There's more and more gun violence and it's easy to crawl up in a ball and say there's nothing we can do to solve this," said state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. "United Playaz gives me hope ... hope that working at a neighborhood level, at a local level, we can move the conversation up and finally do something real about gun violence in this country."
"This should not be the kind of country we should be living in," Assemblymember David Chiu, D-San Francisco, said. "We believe that while folks may have a right to a gun, they don't have a right to kill people with that gun. And the fact of the matter is that, today 100 Americans are going to die because of guns.
"I'm honored to be part of a community that says 'we're going to do it differently,'" he said.
According to Deputy police Chief Greg McEachern, police have been working with United Playaz for several years doing gun buybacks.
"It really is a collaborative effort between law enforcement antdthe community," he said. "This opportunity that we have here in San Francisco to reduce the gun violence, especially during the holiday season, may save a child's life, it may save the life of a loved one that you have, because there will be one less gun off the street."
United Playaz holds gun buyback events at least twice a year. Since the program began in 2014, more than 1,000 guns have been collected.
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