Gun buybacks are as popular as ever, and that's more than a little disheartening. See, the problem here isn't that people want to host them so much as that they're either lying to themselves or just lying to others about them.
The research is pretty clear. There's no evidence that so-called buybacks do anything to make communities safer. None at all, yet officials continue to tell the public that these events are about doing just that.
Take Santa Rosa, CA.
They hosted their second gun buyback.
The Santa Rosa Police Department reminds residents about the upcoming Community Gun Buyback Event on Saturday, October 3, 2026, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial Building (1351 Maple Ave.).
Community members can anonymously and safely turn in unwanted firearms and receive compensation for qualifying, functional firearms:
- $250 for ghost guns and assault weapons
- $150 for handguns, rifles, and shotguns
No identification is required, and no questions will be asked. Participants should transport unloaded firearms in the trunk of their vehicle and remain in their vehicle while an officer safely retrieves the firearm.
...
This event is one part of the Santa Rosa Police Department's broader strategy to reduce gun violence and improve public safety. Removing unwanted and unsecured firearms from homes can help prevent accidental shootings, reduce the risk of firearms being stolen and used in crimes, and provide community members with a responsible disposal option.
The department last conducted a gun buyback event in October 2022, collecting 438 firearms, including assault weapons and ghost guns. That event was also fully funded through the Santa Rosa Police Foundation.
This is disheartening because I remember their first "buyback."
At the time, it was pointed out that these events don't do anything, and I laid out why these don't work. The people who sell guns at these events aren't the people who represent a problem in the first place. They're people looking to get rid of things like family heirlooms or they simply don't know what else to do with an unwanted firearm.
Or, conversely, they're trying to dump a gun they used in a crime and don't want to be caught with, but they'll have another gun in short order if they don't already.
I also pointed out that they spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $84,000 on the promise it would do something, and when it was pointed out that it wouldn't, Santa Rosa Police Chief John Cregan sold the media on some vague hope that it might do something to prevent one act. He's still there and has clearly learned nothing about the efficacy of this kind of kabuki theater.
At most, what this does is raise the price of guns on the legitimate market because these are guns that can't be sold to lawful buyers. Realistically, though, it doesn't even do that because these guns were never on the market, thus couldn't have impacted price.
This time around the Santa Rosa PD collected 583 firearms, including 198 handguns and 17 so-called assault weapons.
The criminals won't be impacted because even if every gun from criminal hands in Santa Rosa ended up in the "buyback" somehow, they'd be armed again by sundown. I know it, you know it, but no one in Santa Rosa seems to know it. At least, no one in authority.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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