Do buybacks make a dent in gun violence?
The line of cars at Harris County’s gun buyback event in February ought to give us all a little hope. We need that.
After all, not even the deaths of 19 students and two teachers at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary seem to have broken the hold of Second Amendment absolutists on the Texas Legislature.
Our sorry and dismay, though, is cut by the sight of Texans waiting hours to turn in their guns. At a park on the banks of Lake Houston, 820 weapons were exchanged for gift certificates, which ranged from $50 for a nonfunctioning gun to $200 for an assault weapon. Is there any gun safety initiative that’s nearly as popular?
The trouble is, according to the Rand Corporation’s review of years of published research, there’s no evidence gun buybacks alone reduce gun violence. Do the statistics matter, though, if just one death is prevented? Is that worth the expense? Or perhaps these events help shift the culture behind the violence in our streets and homes.
That broader picture is what Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, who led the partnership with the city of Houston to launch the buyback program, has in mind. He told the editorial board, “Part of why I’m excited about what gun buybacks can do, regardless of any research, is — I want to change that culture, I want people to change that narrative of thinking anytime you have a dispute, get a gun and solve it quickly.”
At the most recent gun buyback, one editorial board member spoke with dozens of people handing over rifles and handguns to get a sense of why they participated. Typically middle aged or seniors, they drove up in all sorts of vehicles — everything from pickups to Teslas — and drew from a broad range of racial and ethnic backgrounds. We agreed to use only their first names for security reasons.
Rudy, from Acres Homes, brought in two old handguns. “I have no use for them anymore, so I want to get the gift certificates,” he said. “I can use the money. I have had them for a long time, they were actually given to me. I have other guns, several other guns in the house, so I can get rid of these.”
He wasn’t alone in bringing out-of-use weapons. Time and again, participants said the guns they handed over were from deceased relatives or that they had other firearms they planned to keep. Of the 820 weapons turned in, many didn’t function. Only 57 were semi-automatic long guns.
If the goal of the program is to reduce the number of guns in the hands of violent criminals, well, the researchers are likely right that other measures would be a better use of our tax dollars.
The $2 million the county and city are spending on gun buybacks ought to be spent on programs that are backed by evidence. Asheley Van Ness, a criminal justice expert at Arnold Ventures, told us that violence interruption programs, or street outreach, have been shown to work. Credible messengers are sent into communities to defuse tensions. She also held up environmental improvements such as street lights as proven violence reduction tools. Even trees help by reducing stress and keeping people cool, in terms of both temperature and temperament.
Harris County is already spending millions on such programs, despite the ridicule of some Republicans during the last election.
In a 2022 campaign ad, Harris County judge candidate Alexandra Mealer says that Lina Hidalgo “pretends funding bike trails and social workers is the same as law enforcement.”
Hidalgo also faced widespread criticism, including from this board, for not giving enough attention to the spike in violent crime and to court backlogs. Is it any wonder, then, that the county would devote a fraction of the overall budget for popular gun buybacks that gain public participation as well as substantial media attention, even if they’re not backed by research?
Regardless, any waste of tax dollars on a program of questionable efficacy is too much. Symbolic action and public outreach matter, but we hope to see gun buybacks used with other widely supported and tangible measures that are backed by evidence — education about safe gun storage and the distribution of gun safes, either for free or at discounted prices.
As Nicole Golden of Texas Gun Sense explained to us, Texans from a variety of backgrounds support safe gun storage. While state law already enables prosecutors to hold parents accountable for leaving guns in children's reach, enforcement is uneven. More than half of American gun owners don’t safely secure their guns, according to research out of Johns Hopkins University. Tackling that challenge, Golden says, can be done through legislation and education.
Harris County’s popular gun buyback program is clearly missing an opportunity for engaging residents more deeply. At a minimum, couldn’t information about safe storage be shared with people turning in guns? Why not provide free or discounted gun safes, or gun locks? Perhaps these people who took the time out of their weekends to turn in guns could be connected with efforts to build safer communities.
As the gun buyback line slowly moved behind him, Lt. Mike Nguyen with the sheriff ’s office told us, “There’s many other programs that we can engage the community and interact with them on a regular basis. That starts the talk for lowering the gun violence itself. It’s not just one program, it’s not just one thing. It’s multiple things coming together.”
We agree. Every day we try to start our editorials with something that grabs your attention and then try to keep you with us while we lay out often complex solutions. Gun buybacks — even when it’s for grandpa’s dusty rifle — could be a helpful attention-getting tool. As long as they're not the only one. And as long as they're not siphoning funding from another tool that works better.
Researchers haven’t found evidence that they alone limit violence.