Chicago police offer to pay people to surrender their guns
Chicago police say that more than 100 firearms were turned in
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The Chicago Police Department held an event over the weekend that paid residents to turn over their guns.
The event, held at Saint Ida Church in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood on Saturday, gave residents a $100 prepaid gift card for each gun they turned in and $10 for BB-guns, air-guns, and replica guns, WFLD-TV reported.
Chicagoans who attended the event were not asked how they acquired the guns if they turned them in, and there was no limit to how many guns each person could exchange for a gift card.
A spokesperson for the Chicago Police Department said that 103 firearms were turned in during the event along with 19 replica guns.
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The Chicago Police Department held a gun buyback event on Saturday (WFLD-TV / Fox News)
"Gun turn-ins give the people the ability to turn in a gun with no questions asked." Glen Brooks, director of community policing for the Chicago Police Department, told the outlet. "We’re not asking whether the gun was found, whether it was left, whether you inherited it, it does not matter. What matters is that you do whatever you can to make yourself and your family safer."
The guns will be destroyed by the Chicago Police Department and anyone who was unable to make the event is being encouraged to turn guns in at the police station, but they will not be eligible to receive a gift card.
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Chicago skyline, photographed from outside the Adler Planetarium in Chicago (Raymond Boyd/Getty Images / Getty Images)
Chicago police also say that they can safely dispose of any ammunition or gun parts.
The gun exchange event comes as Chicago continues to struggle with gun crime, including 24 reported shooting incidents that yielded 31 victims over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
Shootings over the weekend included at least four juveniles, and police said at least six people were murdered in the weekend violence.
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Chicago Police Department personnel on scene of an unspecified crime in this undated photo. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service / Getty Images)
Police and community organizers have held gun buy back events across the city in recent months while Democrats in the state continue to push for gun control legislation, including a move this week to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, WLS-TV reported.