Headline Surfer photo / Nearly five dozen handguns have been taken off the streets of Volusia County in the 2013 Kicks 4 Guns program and that's exciting news to Sheriff Ben Johnson.DELAND -- One of the handguns had been reported stolen to a local police department in 2011, turned up in an annual turn-in-your-gun program with no questions asked.
A total of 58 guns were voluntarily turned in to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office in Thursday's annual Kicks 4 Guns crime-fighting program, which encourages citizens to turn in unwanted guns to law enforcement for safe and proper disposal with no questions asked.
This was the fourth year that the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office has participated in the program, and nobody is more pleased with the results than the county's top cop.
“The public’s response to this annual event was extremely positive,” Sheriff Ben Johnson told Headline Surfer. “This is a grass-roots program that makes us all a little safer. That’s 58 unwanted guns that have been taken out of circulation so that they can’t fall into the wrong hands, be used to facilitate a crime or result in an accidental death or injury.”
Headline Surfer photo / Volusia County Sheriff Ben Jonson on 'Kicks 4 Guns' program'
“The public’s response to this annual event was extremely positive,” Sheriff Ben Johnson told Headline Surfer. “This is a grass-roots program that makes us all a little safer. That’s 58 unwanted guns that have been taken out of circulation so that they can’t fall into the wrong hands, be used to facilitate a crime or result in an accidental death or injury.”
The Sheriff’s Office’s event, one of two in Volusia County and more than a dozen around Central Florida , was held at the Volusia County Fairgrounds in DeLand. Residents who turned in their guns to the Sheriff’s Office during the 12-hour event Thursday received a $50 Walmart gift card.
The gift cards were purchased with money seized in criminal cases. Most of the turned-in weapons were handguns, with a handful of rifles and a few unusual items mixed in -- including a pen gun and a sawed-off shotgun.
The handgun reported stolen to the DeLand police force in 2011, also was among the firearms turned in Thursday.