JERSEY CITY – Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy and Police Department officials announced the city will host another gun buyback from 12 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, January 5, 2013 at the Evangelismos Greek Orthodox Church, 661 Montgomery Street. There, residents can turn in rifles for $100, handguns and automatic weapons for $150, respectively, with no questions asked. 

A separate press conference will be held at 11 a.m. on Monday, January 7, 2013, at the Police Department Property Room, 365 Summit Avenue (entrance off Newkirk Street), to display the results of the buyback and to discuss 2012 crime stats.

“We firmly believe that the fewer guns that are out there in our city, the safer all of our residents, businesses and visitors will be,” said Mayor Healy. “Our initiative is funded without taxpayer dollars and over the course of the past several years has resulted in nearly 1,300 guns being removed from the households and streets of our city.”

Since taking office in late 2004, Mayor Healy has hosted two gun buyback programs – the second with several phases – in which all funds used to pay for the weapons collected were raised from corporate and private donors as well as funds from the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office forfeiture funds. During those buybacks in 2005, 2011 and 2012 a collective of 1,297 handguns, rifles and assault weapons were taken into police custody.

Like prior operations, the turning in of weapons for cash is considered an amnesty program, meaning those individuals turning in weapons need not fear prosecution for possession of such.