Milwaukee Gun Buyback Begins Saturday

Editor’s Note: This article is part of a Wisconsin Public Radio year-long series tracking all gun-related homicides in Wisconsin.

WPR’S count of gun homicides in the state this year now stands at 34, with most of the deaths occurring in Milwaukee. Police in that city are trying to buy more guns off the street Saturday, with no questions asked.

A group of African-American ministers has been asking for the return of a gun buyback program, a strategy to reduce gun violence tried previously in Milwaukee and many other U.S. cities. Pastor John McVicker, Sr., a leader of the coalition, says a gun buyback is not an attack on any constitutional rights to own a gun, and that it’s actually in alignment with the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

“We the clergy believe that the people of the inner city have afforded them those same inalienable rights endowed by their creator, and among these are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness,” said McVicker. “And this will not happen until we eliminate gun violence as the means by which disputes are settled, as well as the means being viewed as the answer for hard economic times.”

Milwaukee law enforcement officials will run the gun buyback Saturday at Tabernacle Community Baptist church. Like most other buyback programs, police are offering bank cards of varying amounts for unloaded and wrapped shotguns, rifles, handguns and assault rifles.

The clergy group admits gun buybacks are not a cure-all for gun violence. Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn supports the buyback but doesn’t expect many lawbreakers to turn in a weapon.

Metal recyclers are promising to eventually melt any guns collected and form them into garden tools.