CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – On Saturday the Charlottesville Police Department conducted their second gun buy back event, providing gift cards as an incentive to have members of the community surrender their firearms. The goal is to reduce the number of guns that are on the street given the unprecedented level of and access to firearms that law enforcement is encountering on a regular basis.
The second event was at the same place that the first one was conducted at, Mt. Zion First African Baptist Church, which is located on Lankford Avenue across Elliott Avenue from the IX Park. The event is a partnership with the anti-violence group Moms Demand Action geared at bringing awareness to gun violence and emphasizing prevention efforts.
Charlottesville Police Chief Michael Kochis talked about the importance of the event on the WINA Morning News.
“With my community action team at the Charlottesville Police Department, we have several members that are a part of Moms Demand Action, so we have a very good relationship with the organization and other groups like Mt. Zion First African Baptist Church. We’re doing it in their parking lot,” Kochi said. “We did the first one about six months ago and it was very successful and we got almost 100 firearms. People turn in older firearms that they don’t want in their homes but we also get AR15’s and AK47’s, they turn them in and we destroy them. Then we hand out gun locks and talk about how to be a responsible gun owner. So, it really is a great event to engage with another segment of the community which could be gun owners and I think that is important. We were surprised with how much interest there was.”
On Saturday, the CPD collected another 58 firearms and Kochis told WINA Morning News that he is committed to making sure they continue these types of events.
“The one thing I tell my folks is that we are not gonna do one-offs,” Kochis said. “If we’re gonna do something, we need to make sure we’re doing them consistently and making sure we’re doing them intentionally with the goal of ultimately building relationships with all segments of our community and that’s how you build trust.”
