HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) – Hundreds of people drove through the Falkenburg Road Jail on Saturday morning to drop off a total of 681 unwanted firearms for the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office Drive and Drop Gun Swap.
“We are dropping off couple of pistols we found in my dads collection, he passed away a number of years ago. We don’t know where he got them, how they came about. I have no use for them and I much rather get rid of them in a better way than throwing them in the trash,” said Charles Ferguson.
This is the third year HCSO has hosted this event. In the previous two gun swaps, HCSO has collected in total more than 3,600 unwanted firearms.
“There is a lot of reasons they don’t want it. Maybe they are worrying about it falling the wrong hands, maybe they don’t want it to fall into the hands of a child, or maybe they inherited it and they don’t want it in their home,” said Sheriff Chad Chronister.
The program was brought back in 2018 by Sheriff Chronister. It has allowed for hundreds of guns to be dropped off at convenient locations and in exchange citizens get cash.
This is all done anonymously. Deputies take the rifles and handguns, check them in the registry to see if they’re stolen, and then they’re destroyed.
“The rest of them will be melted down into steel, and possibly used for some of the new construction you see in the Tampa Bay Area,” added Chronsiter.
Each person who dropped off an unwanted firearm, was gifted $50 per gun from the Law Enforcement Trust Fund Money.
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