'Why hold onto them?': Houston residents turn in their guns

Marilyn Bragg had five guns in her car -- they were her late husband's, but she no longer wanted them in her home.

Over the weekend, she joined a long line of vehicles to turn the weapons in to police in Houston, Texas, a state rocked by mass shootings.

"I'm just trying to get guns out of the house. I don't even know how to shoot a gun," the 64-year-old retiree said. "I have grandkids and I don't want my grandkids to get hold of them."

Dozens of cars were waiting on Saturday in the gun drop-off line at Harris County's Deussen Park, where police weapons experts attended to them one by one.

Gun owners had to leave their weapons in the trunk or back seat, where they were retrieved by an officer, checked to make sure they were unloaded and registered in a document.

Several people had brought at least a dozen guns, which were received without question. Over the course of the day, 793 guns were handed in.

In return, participants got gift cards worth $50 for a non-functioning weapon, $100 for a working shotgun or rifle, $150 for a pistol and $200 for a semiautomatic weapon.

This is the county's third such drive in the past year, with another 2,000 guns already collected as part of a plan to reduce crime.

"I think it's a good program. It helps me get rid of some guns I haven't used and that are of no value to me," said 62-year-old Stuart Wolf, who was dropping off 11 guns in his truck.

"There are really no safe ways other than this to get rid of them."

Also waiting in the drop-off line with his wife Loretta was Kenneth Blackmon, 69, who was turning over seven guns.

"We have enough weapons, and some of the ones we're getting rid of, we don't need. So why hold on to them? Just get rid of them," he said.

"And not to mention the crime going on. Naturally, we don't leave our weapons in the car, but a lot of people do, and that's how a lot of the criminals... steal the weapons."

- Deadly shootings -
 

Every day, police in cities across the state report shooting incidents.

"Since 2009 more people have died in mass shootings in Texas than in any other state," said Rodney Ellis, a county commissioner, citing a report from a prominent gun control organization.

"And over the past decade, gun thefts in Texas increased by 16 percent."

According to 2020 figures from the FBI, the violent crime rate in Texas -- at 446.5 incidents for every 100,000 people -- was markedly higher than the national average, at 398.5.

In 2019, there were 1,379 murders in Texas, which has a population of about 30 million people.

Of those murders, 1,064 were carried using guns, the second highest figure in the country after California.

Days ago, one person was killed and three were wounded by gunshots during an altercation between two groups of people at a mall in the border town of El Paso. A 16-year-old suspect was detained over the crime.

The incident took place just steps from a Walmart store where, in 2019, a shooter massacred 23 people. A 24-year-old white nationalist pleaded guilty to the killings earlier this month.

More recently, in May of 2022, a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers in a rampage at a school in Uvalde, Texas before being shot and killed himself.

It is legal to carry a gun in Texas, and in the United States, the Second Amendment gives citizens the right to bear arms.

But Ellis, the county commissioner, suggested the framers of the Constitution could not have foreseen today's modern firearms.

"I know in America we have a Second Amendment, but I don't think anybody thought that you'd be able to have... a semi-automatic weapon," he said.

"So until we can change the culture to get somewhere to have some reasonable gun control in this country, this is the kind of thing we have to do."