The Great Gun Buyback of 2011.

Apparently, it went well for the Greater Austin Crime Commission and the Jastrow Family Foundation.

By 11 a.m. Saturday, police had collected about 400 guns and expected to give away $40,000 worth of gift cards, said Richard Hill, president of the Greater Austin Crime Commission .

It looks like it went well for some other people, too:

Pro-gun activists with Texans for Accountable Government protested the program by advertising a counter Guns for Cash program to people who showed up to trade their guns. Outside the church parking lot, they offered 10 percent more than the value of the gift cards.

The Statesman doesn’t tell us (or perhaps TAG didn’t want to discuss with the Statesman) exactly how many guns were bought for cash. Robb Allen also has a post up on the subject: based on his summary and the linked article, it appears TAG was only purchasing functional guns, so the APD ended up with lots of non-functional clunkers. This fits in with what  I saw on the local news last night; it looks like there were a lot of old .22 rifles, some muzzleloaders (!), and not a whole lot of really good stuff.

Keith Bradley is a local gun collector. He and a few others were looking to buy guns Saturday but say in situations where people are giving away their guns voluntarily, the quality of guns isn’t good.

“You’re going to find 80 percent of the weapons being turned in today are non functional. They’re rusted out, they’re garbage,” said Bradley.

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