GUN BUYBACK program, NON-PROFIT WEAPONS COLLECTION SURRENDER & DESTRUCTION

Donate Your Unwanted Guns

We vow to collect unwanted weapons so that they will never be used again in anger. Donate anonymously from anywhere in the US — pick a drop box for free!

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What Grinds Our Gears

Our Mission

Every year, thousands of weapons become unwanted. There are many reasons, but everyone wants a safe, reliable partner to entrust their unwanted firearm to. Fifty50 Forever Home’s mission is to safely ensure that these weapons will never show up at a crime scene or be used in an act of violence to harm a soul, ever.

With the recent ease of ghost gun creation by those who aren’t able to use them safely or able to possess them legally, Forever Home offers a way for those concerned for the safety of their loved ones to get these weapons and the parts to make them out of the wrong hands.

Gun Buybacks & Gun Surrender Programs

These are events where individuals can turn in firearms to an authorized party like a licensed manufacturer or law enforcement with no questions asked.

The overall goal of gun buyback programs is to reduce the number of gun deaths and injuries from irresponsible, careless or unwanted guns in a community. The objective of a gun buyback event is to simply get unwanted or unneeded guns off the streets. Getting guns off the streets does not directly correlate to gun violence or any kind of violence.

Reducing the availability of unwanted guns in a community.

The basic principles of supply and demand support the idea that decreased rates of gun ownership would increase the difficulty or cost for dangerous persons to obtain weapons. This theory is backed up by decades of empirical data, which show a direct and robust correlation between the rate of gun ownership and the rate of gun deaths in a community.

When a gun owner decides to make their home gun-free, they often find it difficult or complicated to dispose of their guns legally and safely. Gun buybacks provide a straightforward, efficient, and easy way to dispose of unwanted guns.

Best Practices for …

Gun Buybacks

All buybacks are not created equal. The design and implementation can have a dramatic impact on their effectiveness in reducing unwanted gun ownership. Since buybacks became popular tools for addressing unwanted gun ownership in the early 1990’s, research on their efficacy have helped public safety experts improve their implementation.

Effective gun buybacks include:

Structuring the buyback to attract all irresponsibly owned or unwanted guns. Any unwanted gun is a potential for bad outcomes, and a safe forever home for each and every unwanted gun is our goal.

Gun buyback programs should target gun owners who self-identify as being concerned about safety and those who no longer want to be gun owners. Partnership with community organizations and institutions to Fifty50 Forever Home can improve the participation and impact.

All guns collected should be turned over to Fifty50 Forever Home for responsible disposition. Allowing collected guns to re-enter circulation undermines objectives of community organizers and the educational campaigns designed to encourage participation.

Participation in the event should be anonymous. Municipalities have found ways to require and verify that participants are city residents, while still preserving the anonymity but this is not any kind of a reasonable requirement. Fifty50 Forever Home will receive guns from anyone, anywhere, no questions asked and commits to never letting them back into the hands of anyone who might cause violence.

Buybacks should be handled by neutral parties like Fifty50 Forever Home and in places like community centers, houses of worship and Fifty50 turn-in boxes rather than with law enforcement involvement or at police stations.

Community participation in the initiation, implementation, and funding of gun buybacks can improve the secondary impacts of the event. Following these science-based practices for effectiveness, gun buybacks can be a powerful addition to any comprehensive, multi-pronged approach in addressing unwanted gun ownership.

FAQs

Do gun buybacks and gun surrender programs work?

The short answer is yes. On the participant level, they produce material reductions in the likelihood of gun violence occurring in a home – by eliminating ownership of unwanted guns and voluntary surrender of those who deem themselves irresponsible. At the community level, we know that they reduce the rates of gun violence when implemented at sufficient scale. In Australia, for example, a large scale gun buyback effort reduced the rate of firearm homicide by 59% and firearm suicide by 74% in the years following.

To date, gun buybacks in the U.S. have occurred infrequently and on a relatively small scale. As a result, they have not demonstrated an impact on unwanted gun ownership. We believe that this is not an indictment of the model, rather, a reflection of their limited reach.

Our approach allows gun buybacks to achieve the necessary frequency and scale to deliver results. On top of that, we’re collecting unprecedented data on gun buybacks to understand how to improve the way they are implemented and increase their impact.

How do buybacks prevent criminals from obtaining guns?

While buybacks do remove a number of illegal guns from circulation, any gun that is not properly stored can easily fall into the wrong hands. Experts estimate that roughly 50% of guns used in crimes are stolen from law-abiding citizens or otherwise illegally obtained. Each year in the United States, there are an estimated 500,000 guns stolen from homes where they were not properly stored.

Don't people just turn in old and non-working guns?

Certainly! That’s what’s great about Fifty50 Forever Home. No judgment. No questions asked. The guns are clearly unwanted but still dangerous, and we are getting them out of the hands of those who could use them irresponsibly.

How do you know people aren’t using other gun buyback programs to buy more guns?

This is an important question. You don’t know! Fifty50 Forever home does not provide funds that can be used to purchase any sort of contraband or illegal material. Based on existing research of buybacks and data we’ve collected, the vast majority of people participating in buybacks are motivated by safety – we can’t speak for other programs! Because of the way our programs are structured, only those who no longer want their guns or are irresponsible owners and want to remove the risk from their home or daily lives participate in a Fifty50 Forever Home program.

What happens to the guns that are turned in?

Fifty50 Foreverhome is a Federally Licensed Manufacturer. We have the necessary tranining, expertise and knowledge to safely disable, destroy and otherwise render any weapon inoperable and then use the remaining pieces for peaceful purposes like art, recycling or safety programs that Fifty50 supports in coordination with like minded non-profits.

We believe in common-sense solutions that prevent unwanted guns and irresponsible ownership from endangering anyone. We love and support the 2nd Amendment; we’re here to take meaningful action towards solving simple, solvable problems.

What we do

Our Services

Rescuing Weapons

For organizations that want to run, or have recently run a buyback program, Fifty50 Forever Home will arrange to transport these weapons to our processing facility for research, education and eventual destruction.

Finding a Forever Home

If you would like to donate or surrender one or more weapons, Fifty50 Forever Home will pay to ship these items to us. You will never need to worry about them again.

Education

Fifty50 Forever Home values educating the public on how to best manage the risks of urbanization, domestic, and other forms of violent crime. All of this is part of the solution.