Neighborhoods across the state dealing with a sad reality of increasing gun violence.
Just a little over an hour west on the Thruway from Syracuse, the city of Rochester is seeing some of the highest rates of that violence in the entire state.
And with this in mind, leaders across the state are working to increase community engagement in hopes of making an impact on the young people who are most effected, while also intervening in crimes of retaliation before they happen.
One way they have done that is with gun buyback programs, which hopefully will get dangerous guns off the street.
According to the New York Attorney General, nearly 3,000 guns have been collected through statewide gun buybacks since 2019.
“We had another very successful gun buyback program this past weekend. I’m told it was the fourth most productive gun buyback program in the Attorney General’s program history," said Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh.
On Saturday, 240 guns were turned in at the Syracuse buyback.
No identification is required when someone is turning in their guns, and, in turn for the guns, the person gets a pre-paid gift card.
The AG’s office offers $25 for non-working guns, $75 for rifles or shotguns, $150 for handguns and $300 for assault rifles.
“What we see on a daily basis is that there are still plenty of guns out there being used and the gun buyback is one of many tools being used to address it,” said Walsh.
The anonymity of these programs makes it impossible to discern which guns are unregistered. But, according to the National Institute of Justice, most homicides are committed with handguns.
Of the 240 guns collected in Syracuse, 104 were handguns.
“I do know the vast majority guns used in violent crimes are not legally owned and an increased percentage are ghost guns,” said Walsh.
Research in the success of gun buyback programs reducing gun violence has morphed over the years. Gun buyback programs date back as far as the 1970s.
There is no definitive single number of guns collected through buybacks in the nation, but we do know that America is responsible for almost half of all civilian-held firearms in the world, according to the Small Arms Survey.
A 2015 survey conducted by peer-reviewed online journal "Injury Prevention" found that 10.3% of New Yorkers own guns.
There’s conflicting research with its direct effectiveness on reduction of gun violence but multiple studies find buybacks are an effective part of a multi-pronged approach.
“Even the data at the national level is inconclusive at best but we do know that any time we can get the gun out of the hands of someone who doesn’t want it or legally own it, that’s a good thing. And that does mitigate the risk of that gone being used in an illegal and harmful way," said Walsh.
