{"id":547498,"date":"2010-04-29T15:07:01","date_gmt":"2010-04-29T19:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef0133ed0f9cd1970b"},"modified":"2010-04-29T18:40:44","modified_gmt":"2010-04-29T22:40:44","slug":"city-gun-turn-in-program-in-need-of-cash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/547498","title":{"rendered":"City gun turn-in program in need of cash"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by John Byrne<\/em> at 2:02 p.m.; last updated at 5:40 p.m.
<\/br><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mayor Richard Daley today urged Chicagoans to turn in firearms in exchange for a prepaid credit card, but the city is going to have to pass the hat to come up with enough money to cover the yearly program.<\/p>\n

Anyone turning in an assault weapon May 8 at one of 22 locations\u00a0(for a list, click here)<\/a> around the city will receive a $100 prepaid card. The payment is $75 for a gun other than an assault weapon, and $10 for a BB gun, air gun or a replica gun, the mayor said at a news conference.\n<\/p>\n

Two years ago, $130,000 was raised for the annual drive. Last year, it
\nwas down to $69,000 in donations and the mayor said the poor economy
\ncontinues to drive down donations this year. About $46,000 has been raised so far this year for the program, with more than 150 businesses contributing, according to mayoral spokesman Lance Lewis.<\/p>\n

"The economy is going down, that’s why," Daley said.
<\/br>\n<\/p>\n

The mayor was joined by Terry Hillard, the former police superintendent who is a co-chairman of the gun turn-in program. Hillard urged people to donate, and called for more publicity to convince companies to take part.
<\/br><\/p>\n

"Call one person and ask them to come up with $50 or $75 or $100, to put toward this initiative, so we can make this a successful drive next Saturday," Hillard said.<\/p>\n

While the city cut back the reward for guns other than assault rifles
\nto $50 last year, officials increased the payment by $25 this year to $75.<\/p>\n

"We asked more
\ncontributors to contribute more and more money to the program, we hope
\nto expand, to make it more reasonable," Daley said.
<\/br>\n<\/p>\n

Critics have questioned the gun buyback program’s effectiveness, pointing out that people sometimes turn in broken weapons to get a reward.<\/p>\n

Since the gun turn-in began in 2006, "almost 19,000 illegal guns" have
\nbeen collected, including 1,900 last summer, according to a city news
\nrelease.
<\/br>\n<\/p>\n

To read last year’s story on the program,\u00a0please click here<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted by John Byrne at 2:02 p.m.; last updated at 5:40 p.m. Mayor Richard Daley today urged Chicagoans to turn in firearms in exchange for a prepaid credit card, but the city is going to have to pass the hat to come up with enough money to cover the yearly program. Anyone turning in an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-547498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547498\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}