A gun buyback event held Sept. 25 at The United Church of Christ, Longmont was a huge success, said Rev. Sarah Verasco, who oversaw the church’s first-ever firearm buyback event.
The buyback resulted in 66 firearms turned in. A community celebration that followed included a demonstration of a gun part handed over earlier in the day being turned into a garden tool, Verasco said in an email.
“Our best guess is that more than 150 people participated in some part of the day,” she said.
The buyback was supported by several community partners including Longmont Public Safety, RAWtools Inc., Longmont Community Foundation and Out Boulder County.
Participants were asked to come to the church’s parking lot, located at Ninth Avenue and Francis Street, between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. with their unloaded guns in the trunks of their cars. They were then given gift cards for each gun.
All the guns were disabled in the presence of the person who brought the firearm. The remaining gun parts were then taken to be fashioned into garden tools and works of art by a blacksmith from RAWtools.
The event was patterned after a July effort in which the church gave away 138 biometric pin-code safes and 55 vehicle lock boxes to store guns.
