Firearms drive nets hundreds of guns

SAN FRANCISCO — Almost 280 firearms were handed over in a guns-forcash campaign on Saturday, the event’s organizer said via its official Twitter account.

The annual Gun Buy Back campaign, sponsored by San Francisco-based violence prevention group United Playaz, encouraged people to bring in their firearms in exchange for money, in a show of their support for efforts to oppose gun-related violence.

By the end of the event, the organizer tweeted that it has received 271 firearms, including five automatic weapons, an AD automatic rifle and a cannonball.

According to the campaign rules, gun owners will not be asked about the source of the weapons in their hands, so as to encourage more people to turn over their firearms.

The firearms collected this year were more than double those of last year, and all the weapons will be disassembled, ground up and melted down by specialists at the Police Department.

Gun violence has been a major national concern in the United States as tens of thousands of related deaths and injuries occur annually.

The general public in San Francisco are particularly upset about gun-related violence in the country after a mass shooting in Las Vegas in October this year, when a gunman opened fire on a crowd of concertgoers at a music festival, killing 58 people and injuring more than 500 others.

The incident was the deadliest mass shooting committed by an individual in the US.

However, the division in public sentiment over gun control has grown deeper.

CBS News and market research and data analytics firm YouGov interviewed 2,073 US adults online.

The poll found that 63 percent believe mass shootings like those in Las Vegas, Newtown and Orlando can be prevented, but there is a split between gun owners and non-gun owners.

Fifty-one percent of gun owners believe mass shootings are something one has to accept in a free society, while 67 percent of nongun owners say they can be stopped if efforts are made.

According to the poll, 76 percent of Americans who do not support stricter gun laws worry that any such laws would lead to taking away all guns while 69 percent don’t like the idea of the government having databases of gun owners.

An overwhelming 86 percent also believe that laws do nothing to stop criminals from having guns.