Politics & Government
Ridgefield Gun Buyback Program in the Works
The buyback program would be voluntary, and financed through a private donor with a grant channeled to the Friends of Ridgefield organization.
The Ridgefield Board of Selectmen voted Wednesday to ask the Friends of Ridgefield, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, to sponsor a gun buyback program financed by a private donor.
First Selectman Rudy Marconi said the unnamed private individual had offered to provide funding through a nonprofit foundation for the gun buyback program. The Ridgefield Police Department is in favor of it, Marconi said, but the rules for the foundation do not permit it to issue grants to government agencies.
None of the selectmen had an objection to holding a gun buyback program in Ridgefield and Marconi said participation in it would be completely voluntary.
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Many local communities have held guy buyback programs since the tragic shooting on Dec. 14 at Sandy Hook School in Newtown in which six educators and 20 first-grade children were murdered. The gunman, Adam Lanza of Newtown, took his own life, and he also murdered his mother, who owned the guns.
Typically, gun buyback programs offer to purchase revolvers, pistols, rifles and shotguns as an incentive for people to turn in unwanted firearms.
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Support for Municipal Ordinance Banning High-Capacity Magazines?
During the gun buyback discussion, although not directly related to it, Marconi said several towns had asked the law firm Cohen & Wolf to investigate if towns could pass municipal ordinances banning high-capacity firearms magazines.
Lanza used up to nine 30-round detachable magazines at the Sandy Hook School, and most of the victims were shot multiple times.
Connecticut’s new firearms laws ban the ownership of high-capacity magazines, defined as those capable of holding more than 10 bullets, but people may keep those they owned before passage of the new laws.
Marconi said critics, including law enforcement officers, ask what would stop a violator from lying that newly purchased magazines were purchased before the new laws went into effect?
He suggested that the Board of Selectmen might send out a survey to see what public opinion in Ridgefield is on this issue.
What do you think? Should Ridgefield create an ordinance banning high-capacity magazines?
