NORTHAMPTON – Valley residents exchanged 273 unwanted guns for gift cards during Saturday’s gun buy back event in Northampton and Greenfield, according to the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office.
The guns traded in for $50 gift cards include a 9 millimeter semi-automatic, a .357 Magnum, a .38 Special and a vintage “chipmunk gun,” along with long guns, pistols, rifles and shotguns, according to the district attorney’s office.
“Over a dozen of the guns will be brought to the Springfield Armory as they may be of historic value,” Mary Carey, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office wrote in an email Saturday.
The rest will be destroyed at WTE Recycling in Greenfield in the coming weeks, she said.
The program was held at the Northampton and Greenfield police stations and organized by the district attorney’s office, local police and mayors of those two cities. The event is part of an effort to curb violence and organizers deem it a safe and easy way to dispose of unwanted or unsecured weapons.
The district attorney’s office held the first gun buy back in 2013 when 301 guns were collected in Greenfield – including two semiautomatic weapons, a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun and a Davis “Saturday night special.”
Staff Writer Dan Crowley can be reached at dcrowley@gazettenet.com.