PHOENIX — The months since the deadly Connecticut school shooting have seen dozens of gun buyback events across the country, with officials getting thousands of unwanted firearms off the street and sending them off to their destruction.
In Arizona, however, the Republican-controlled Legislature is now moving to save such guns.
Prompted by a gun buyback event in January in Tucson, where a 2011 shooting rampage left six dead and wounded then-U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 12 others, GOP lawmakers crafted a bill that would require local agencies to sell the firearms to gun dealers. The bill, which has passed both chambers of the Legislature, tightens a 2010 law that requires police to sell seized weapons.
Dozens of buybacks have been held this year in states from New Jersey to California, with the efforts kick-started by recent shootings that include the massacre of 20 students and six educators at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
They’re popular among some police and elected officials who either pay cash or hand out gift cards in exchange for unwanted weapons. They’re then destroyed, and officials say the guns are kept out of the hands of children or thieves.
The Tucson event was championed by City Councilman Steve Kozachik. The council there has voted to adopt ordinances that make it illegal to fire a gun while drunk, required background checks at gun shows on city property and mandated that lost or stolen guns be reported to police.
Kozachik is angry at the Legislature for pushing the bill that essentially guts cities’ efforts to get guns off the streets.
“To me it’s just more hypocrisy from the right,” Kozachik said. “They’re big civil libertarians when it comes to anybody’s personal property until it becomes a gun that we’re talking about. And then it becomes a community asset.”
Democrats failed to keep the bill from passing the Senate Tuesday after an impassioned debate where Giffords’ name was raised, and it’s now headed to Republican Gov. Jan Brewer’s desk for action. Brewer has not said whether she would sign it, but she’s a strong gun-rights supporter and had signed the 2010 law.
Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, a Democrat who champions the events and survived being shot in the buttocks at the end of a 1997 Board meeting, sent a letter to Brewer Wednesday afternoon urging a veto.
The bill “would force the resale of guns that would otherwise never have been used for violence,” she wrote. “How many lives would be lost through the use of weapons our citizens hoped to be removed from the hands of criminals?”
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 43 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.