Gun buyback draws hundreds
The first collection of its kind in five years results in officials obtaining 400 firearms
REDWOOD CITY >> Now that he’s a father of two, Tovias Espinoza doesn’t want to keep firearms in his home.
“They’re at the age where they’re getting nosy now, so I don’t want them finding it,” said Espinoza, 23, of East Palo Alto.
On Saturday, Espinoza, his wife, Vika, their 7-year-old son, Joseph, and 7-month-old Tovias Jr. piled into the family car to surrender Espinoza’s .308 hunting rifle during San Mateo County’s Gun Buyback event.
The gun buyback — the county’s first in five years — drew several hundred people, and the line of idling cars was so long before the 10 a.m. start time that organizers kicked off the event a halfhour early.
One-by-one they pulled up, cracking open their driver’s side window to surrender their guns — everything from handguns and shotguns to assault rifles — to law enforcement officials who handed them cash in return, no questions asked.
“It made me feel comfortable knowing I could just surrender it and leave,” Espinoza said.
Participants were given up to $100 for a handgun, shotgun or rifle and up to $200 for an assault rifle.
This year’s event — held in the midst of a contentious debate on gun control — was particularly meaningful because it was initiated by a small group of San Carlos residents who fervently raised funds to make it happen, approaching cities in San Mateo County, often at city council meetings, to request contributions of $5,000 or more.
Prompted by the Parkland school shooting in Florida, where a disgruntled former student killed 17 people on Feb. 14, the “Citizens for a San Mateo County Gun Buyback” collected an unprecedented $136,000 in donations, about $61,000 more than their initial benchmark. Contributors included the cities of San Carlos, Woodside, Half Moon Bay, San Mateo and Belmont.
“After the Parkland shooting, we just wanted to see some response,” group member Nilu Jenks said. “And we’ve been blown away by the response.”
“It’s an opportunity for the community to get rid of their
guns, which is hard to do,” Jenks said.
Rep. Jackie Speier said the group’s advocacy is an example of what can happen when the community speaks out and “the rest of us listen.”
San Mateo County Sheriff Carlos Bolanos collaborated with the group for several months, managing the program and providing staff and security for the event Saturday.
When residents pulled up to one of three driveways at a dirt lot on Maple Street, they were greeted by a fire range inspector who retrieved the gun, sometimes more than one, from their trunk. The inspector then handed the gun to a nearby law enforcement officer, who processed the guns before they were stowed away, to be eventually destroyed.
About 15 minutes before the event ended, officials had collected 400 guns, the majority of which were inherited from family members who had died, according to Det. Rosemerry Blankswade, spokeswoman for the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.
“They either don’t want the gun, don’t need them, can’t secure them, have a small family; (there are) various reasons that they don’t want them,” she said. “This is a perfect opportunity to turn them in. We also do have some people who are coming here today who either have had lifestyle changes or changes in the laws and now they’re in possession of an illegal weapon and they want to turn that in, too.”
For Terry Carmona, 67, of Redwood City, it was an opportunity to get rid of an unwanted shotgun she’d found in the storage unit of her home when she moved in.
“I hate guns,” she said. “I
don’t think anybody should have a gun.”
“It’s not about the money, it’s about safety,” she said.