New Yorkers surrender 3,000 firearms

New York residents Saturday surrendered 3,000 firearms to the state in exchange for gift cards.

The submissions, part of a program coordinated by New York Attorney General Letitia James, took place at nine different “buyback” locations throughout New York, including two in New York City. 

Residents were offered a range of gift cards in exchange for their guns. Surrendering a non-working replica, antique or 3D-printed gun was rewarded with a $25 gift card. Rifles and shotguns received $75 gift cards, and handguns, assault rifles, and “ghost guns” — guns which cannot be traced back to its owner — received $500 gift cards, with an extra $150 awarded for each additional gun surrendered.

Authorities asked no questions about how the firearms were obtained or information about those surrendering the guns.

In a statement, Attorney General Letitia James said the state’s acquisition of the firearms is for New Yorkers’ own protection.

"Gun violence has caused so many avoidable tragedies and robbed us of so many innocent New Yorkers," James said, according to ABC News. "Every gun that we removed out of Syracuse homes and off the streets is a potential tragedy averted and another step in protecting communities throughout New York state."

Assistant Attorney General for Buffalo’s regional office Michael Russo said that during James’ tenure, over 4,000 guns have already been surrendered.

Arnie Jonathan, a retired law enforcement officer from Newfane in Western New York, wasn’t sure how to feel about surrendering his father’s gun at the St. John’s African Methodist Episcopal Church in Niagara Falls on Saturday.

"I'm between whether it's good or bad," said Jonathan. "These aren't the people they need to worry about here. We're just getting some gift cards that will make our lives a little bit easier next week."

Jonathan mused that those turning in guns are not the ones who would be likely to use guns for violence anyway, while criminals still remain armed.

"The scary part is that there's this many people here right now. You know how much there is out there that isn't being turned in?" he said.

AG James did not respond to a Frontline News request for comment about whether the state will destroy the guns or keep them.

Constitutional experts, however, maintain that the Second Amendment was added precisely to avoid such a situation in which an armed government reigns over an unarmed citizenry.

UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh, a constitutional scholar who specializes in the First and Second Amendments and clerked for former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, says the Second Amendment was created to establish a bulwark against a tyrannical government, a notion that he says was accepted even in late-1700s England.

“Naturally, everyone understood that a government (whether tyrannical or not) will do all it can to suppress rebellion; but the thought was that the existence of an armed citizenry will deter the government from getting tyrannical, and will give a majority the tools that it could use to overthrow an oppressive minority that has taken over the government,” he says.

And that was exactly what Americans had done right before the Second Amendment was written, which provided important historical context as to what was motivating America’s Founding Fathers at the time.

If there was still any doubt, one need only look at what the Constitution’s Framers had to say about an armed citizenry.

Guy Smith, a Second Amendment aficionado and founder of Gun Facts, shared with Frontline News the prevailing sentiment around the time the Second Amendment was written.

Thomas Jefferson:

What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.

St. George Tucker, a judge and officer in the Virginia Militia:

In America we may reasonably hope that the people will never cease to regard the right of keeping and bearing arms as the surest pledge of their liberty.

Tench Coxe, a Patriot and delegate to the Continental Congress:

As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.

“He spells it out quite plainly: Because of A and B, we have C,” Smith commented on Coxe’s statement. 

The gun researcher painted a portrait of the historical milieu surrounding the Second Amendment: 

“The people, having just fought a revolution, largely with private arms, maintained the militia structure for civil defense prior to the revolution. Revolutionary leaders were of the people, and the representatives in Congress who drafted the amendments were representing the thinking of the people.”