Anyone looking to get rid of a working handgun, rifle or other type of firearm can bring it to Trinity Lutheran Church, 42 Guy Park Avenue, Amsterdam, on December 2 from 9am to 12pm and exchange it for a $100 gift card. According to the Amsterdam Police Department, the program allows people to hand in weapons anonymously without fear of being prosecuted for illegal gun possession.
The “Gifts for Guns” program is a collaboration between Pastor William Hodgetts Jr. of Trinity Lutheran Church, the Amsterdam Police Department, and Montgomery County District Attorney Kelli McCoski, and is the third such annual event designed to make Amsterdam a safer community.
In an interview last year about the program, Hodgetts said, “It’s not just that there are illegal guns out there or that they in the hands of people who want to commit crimes…But there are illegal guns in the hands of people who don’t want to commit crimes. For instance a husband has a gun that’s legal and he passes away and the wife comes upon it sometime later and she might be hesitant to bring it in because the permit is not in her name. So now they could bring in and there would be no repercussions. And what if someone broke into a house and stole an illegal gun? That’s another gun on the street.”
