Bush Ends Funding For Gun Buyback
Updated: Mon, Jul 23 5:50 PM EDT
By SHANNON McCAFFREY, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration on Monday said it was ending funding for a gun buyback program at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Critics assailed the move as an attack on gun control laws.
The program took about 20,000 guns off the streets in 80 cities in its first year, according to HUD estimates.
The $15 million program began in November 1999 under the Clinton administration. It gave local police departments up to $500,000 to buy guns in and around public housing projects for around $50 each. The guns taken in were then destroyed.
Many police groups supported the program.
Kevin Morison, spokesman for the Washington, D.C., police, said, "It would be hard to believe that not one of the weapons we took off the streets" would have been used in a crime.
But other people have questioned the legality of the program. A General Accounting Office study requested by Rep. James Walsh, R-N.Y., claimed that HUD could not buy guns with funds meant to help eliminate illegal drugs.
The program's opponents also say there is no evidence it has removed criminals' guns from the streets or lowered the death rate from firearms.
"The success of these programs has never been demonstrated in any study," National Rifle Association lobbyist John Frazer said Monday.
Gun control advocates saw the move as further evidence of a Bush administration push to erode gun laws. A few weeks ago, Attorney General John Ashcroft shortened the amount of time that gun purchasers' instant-background-check records can be kept by the government from 90 days to just 24 hours.
"It's sad, but not surprising, to see George Bush and the Republicans turning their party into a wholly owned subsidiary of the gun lobby," said former HUD secretary Andrew Cuomo, who launched the buyback program. Cuomo is currently seeking the Democratic nomination for governor of New York.
HUD officials said that while funding for the program was being eliminated, individual housing authorities could still run buyback programs with their own money if they chose to.
"This is clearly not part of the core mission of HUD," spokeswoman Nancy Segerdahl said Monday. She said HUD was focusing on affordable housing and was no longer participating in the Communities for Safer Guns Coalition begun by Cuomo.
Officials at HUD said funding for the buyback program was cut because the program could make no guarantees that it was decreasing the supply of guns to criminals or that lawbreakers were surrendering their weapons. HUD said buybacks remove only 1 to 2 percent of guns from the streets.
HUD also said that public housing authorities have shown little interest in making use of the program. Only 100 of the 1,000 housing authorities were participating, they said.
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