L.A. gun buyback yields rocket launcher, assault weapons

[ellisonz]

Photo: Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa look over weapons that were among 1,673 firearms Los Angeles residents traded in for gift cards in the city’s gun buyback this weekend. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times
May 14, 2012 | 12:51 pm
-- Kim Christensen

A $2,000 pair of pocket pistols and a military rocket launcher -- sans rocket -- were among the 1,673 firearms that Los Angeles residents traded in for gift cards in the city’s gun buyback this weekend.

Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa showed off an array of handguns, rifles, shotguns, rifles and assault weapons collected at six locations and piled before them Monday at a news conference outside the Los Angeles Police Department Administration Building.

This year’s buyback, an initiative of the mayor's Gang Reduction and Youth Development Office, yielded 791 handguns, 527 rifles, 302 shotguns and 53 assault weapons, including one with a 50-round clip and silencer. Last year the effort netted 2,062 firearms.

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“In the four years we have been doing this, we have taken almost 8,000 weapons off the streets of Los Angeles,” Beck said, adding that gun violence has dropped nearly 20%.

More: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/05/los-angeles-gun-buyback-yields-1673-firearms.html

That's 1,673 guns that won't be stolen, won't be used in a crime, and won't take a life. :clap:

[dtexdem]

1. But what about my right to "stand my ground" with my suitcase nuke?

;-)

And rec.