Here's a general idea of how many weapons are just floating around this country right now. The LAPD held a gun buyback in Los Angeles on Wednesday (the image above is from a buyback in Bridgeport, Conn. last week) and they received the following: 901 handguns, 698 rifles and 363 shotguns. Oh, they also were handed two rocket launchers. No big deal. And these were just the people willing to turn over their guns in exchange for $100 gift cards (for handguns and long guns) or $200 gift cards (for rifles). In one city. Here's a photo of one of the rocket launchers:
In LA gun buyback, someone turned in a rocket launcher. lat.ms/Ym2i8Y twitter.com/nytjim/status/…
— Jim Roberts (@nytjim) December 28, 2012
This is a big deal to a lot of us horrified by the idea of there being so many guns in one city, but to the LAPD this was just another day at the office. Here's a police source on the rocket launchers:
The official told us this is not that unusual, that "we've had them in the past."
According to the police, the rocket launchers are antiquated, non-working weapons likely picked up by collectors or passed down by family members. Sounds cool, right? Sleep tight!
[via LA Weekly, image via Getty]