Valley firearms dealer: Gun buybacks usually backfire
Feb 28, 2013, 4:02 PM | Updated: 4:44 pm
CHANDLER, Ariz. — Gun buy backs historically don’t work, said Dale Roddy with Desert Valley Firearms in Chandler.
Gun prices have jumped based on fears of tighter gun control following the Connecticut school shooting in December. Roddy said the responsible gun owners will sell firearms to a gun store instead of practically giving them away.
“They’re not going to turn firearms in for a couple of movie tickets or whatever they’re offering.”
During his second State of the City speech Thursday, Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton vowed to stage
what he called the largest gun buyback in Arizona history and double the number
of police officers in schools citywide.
Stanton said “violence has no place in our city.”
He said the buyback program allows residents to drop off unwanted weapons with
no questions asked, every Saturday during the month of May.
The effort is being funded with $100,000 from the non-profit Arizonans for Gun
Safety, which received the money from an anonymous donor.
However, Roddy said buybacks don’t do much more than creating a spur-of-the-moment gun show.
“People show up to buy the guns and it’s perfectly legal for a private individual to buy and sell guns,” he said. “There was a gun show in Seattle last month where collectors showed up with a bunch of money and bought up the guns. The cops didn’t end up with any of the guns in their hands.”
KTAR’s Sandra Haros and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
