Buyback takes 1,000 guns off streets

At least 10 guns turned in to Project RIGHT during the city's gun-buyback program were brought in by wives or girlfriends of men recently jailed for violent or serious offenses, said the organization's executive director.

``The women were fearful of living in a house with a gun, so they brought them into Project RIGHT," said Jorge Martinez.

A total of 35 guns were handed to a Boston police officer assigned to Project RIGHT. The program, based in Grove Hall, was created in 1991 to combat youth violence.

Yesterday, Martinez stood alongside Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Acting Police Commissioner Albert Goslin during a press conference at police headquarters announcing that 1,000 guns had been taken off the streets during the ``Aim For Peace" buyback, which wrapped up Friday night. The program, which started June 12, gave city residents $200 Target gift cards in exchange for guns. About $130,000 worth of cards were given out.

Officials at the press conference recounted the story of a young grandmother who went door-to-door in her apartment complex asking residents if they had guns to drop off. The woman collected five guns and turned them in, they said.

One man turned in an AK-47 assault rifle, they said. The Rev. Shaun O. Harrison, creator of the Youth in Crisis Ministries in Dorchester, said approximately a dozen handguns turned in to his organization came from people ``definitely capable of using them in crimes."

The 1,000 guns, Menino said, represented ``1,000 potential lives that were saved. The firearms we received were exactly the type of firearms we wanted. They can no longer cause harm to any of Boston's residents."

The guns will be examined to determine whether they were used in a crime, he said. The weapons not linked to crimes will be melted and made into sewer caps.

Some of the guns have already been traced. ``We've connected a couple of them to a few crimes," Goslin said, but he added that ``none so far appear to be linked to homicides."

The program may return in the coming months, he said, depending on the level of funding it receives.

The last large cash infusion came July 2 from the Boston Red Sox, which donated $25,000.

Goslin said he will evaluate in the coming weeks whether to restart the program this year. Goslin, who characterized it as one of many anticrime efforts, said police will conduct more than one initiative at a time and they will be more frequent than in the past.