Baltimore Maryland spent a reported $250,000 dollars to purchase over 500 unwanted guns in a "buyback" program.
Buyback is an Owellian propaganda term. You cannot buy back things you never owned in the first place.
The Baltimore program was "successful" in that it collected over 500 firearms to be destroyed. It "worked" for two basic reasons.
First, it offered more money than most of the guns were worth on the open market.
Second, the state of Maryland has made it difficult to buy and sell guns legally and privately. There was little competition for the few guns brought in that were worth more than the government was offering. The inconvenience factor of finding a legal buyer, gave incentive to people who wanted to dispose of a gun.
Most of the guns turned in are those seldom used in crime. Paying $200 for semi-automatic .22 rifles that cost $99 and less when new (and are still widely available for less than $150) is stupid and counterproductive. .......
Once again, the farce of a guns 'buyback' can be seen - two factors seeming to be the dominant ones. Firstly, it is the tax payer who is hit for the profligate expenditure and secondly, over-market prices being offered certainly go towards assisting some people with a purchase of something better! The naevity of the bureacrats is evident as they assume that getting guns "off the streets" is the eternal panacea that decreases gun crimes - all as most criminals keep what they have.