Fredericksburg Gun Giveback To Be Held At Police Headquarters

FREDERICKSBURG, VA — The Fredericksburg Police Department is holding its annual Gun Giveback event Saturday, Jan. 11 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the city's police headquarters at 2200 Cowan Blvd. The event is sponsored by the police department and the Fredericksburg Sheriff's Office.

Gun owners can voluntarily turn in any unwanted firearms for proper and safe disposal. "Gun owners can be confident their unwanted firearms never end up in the hands of criminals or children," the police department said.

This is the sixth time the police department has held the giveback event. More than 170 firearms have been voluntarily surrendered since the inception of the program.

People participate in the program because they want to remove firearms from the homes because they have family members suffering from substance abuse or depression. Other people have cited recent mass shootings as their reason for surrendering firearms, according to police department spokeswoman Sarah Kirkpatrick.

Gun rights groups in Virginia are opposed to gun giveback events such as the one held in Fredericksburg each year. However, the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) and a firearms dealers have failed in their attempts to get the courts to stop the givebacks. The VCDL claimed the event was actually a buy back which, would require a local ordinance, and that by planning to destroy the guns before offering them to the public, the event was violating state laws.

In the past, prospective buyers have parked on the road leading to the Fredericksburg police department, holding up signs indicating they will offer the gun owners cash for the guns they were planning to turn in. "If you offer hard cash to the sellers, you can probably get some nice guns for a song," an article on the AmmoLand website said.