Gun "buybacks" don't work

Boston, like many other American cities, is experiencing difficulties with gang- and drug-related crime. Between June 12 and July 14 this year, guns can be surrendered in the city with no questions asked, under an amnesty, in exchange for a $200 gift voucher. The aim is reduction of numbers of guns on the streets.

It is not the first time the method has been attempted in the city, another such program having been run in the 1990s.

The Boston Globe has now run two articles on consecutive days about gun "buybacks", saying there is no evidence of any reduction in crime following such programs. Nevertheless, they are being run in a resurgence of interest.

The Executive Director of the Police Executive Research Forum defended the concept, saying that gun "buyback" programs promote "shared responsibility for the gun issue", in that they are supposed to bring together the community and the police. The Globe articles, however, seem unsympathetic to the idea. One says that nearly three-quarters of the firearms surrendered in the last such program were old. The lack of empirical evidence aside, even common sense says that career criminals are not going to hand in guns at their local police station for gift vouchers, and it is no wonder crime figures do not improve after such schemes have come and gone.