Osceola News-Gazette video/Andrew Sullivan

 

By Fallan Patterson

Five years into a Central Florida program that trades gift cards for firearms — with no questions asked — Osceola County law enforcement agencies are still getting handguns, rifles and even sawed-off shotguns from residents off the streets.

The Osceola County Sheriff's Office and the Kissimmee Police Department set up separate operations Thursday for the 5th Annual Crimeline-supported Kicks 4 Guns program.

The Sheriff's Office before 2 p.m. collected 142 firearms, including three illegal weapons, at their new location at Osceola Heritage Park as part of Gas for Guns. The agency moved to OHP this year to  increase participation due to high visibility along the U.S. Highway 192 corridor.

“We wanted to make it convenient for as many Osceola County residents as possible,”  spokeswoman Twis Lizasuain said.

The agency will take any firearm regardless of age or whether it's broken in exchange for a $50 gift card to Wawa, RaceTrac, Hess or Murphy USA.

One woman turned in 12 guns before 10 a.m. and another couple turned in 17 firearms just after 10 a.m., the most firearms from any one individual to the Sheriff's Office in five years, Lizasuain said.

Karen, who declined to give her last name, said she and her husband buy broken guns for restoration at various venues.

“We yard sale every weekend,” the St. Cloud woman said. “He likes to tinker around with stuff.”

When the firearms are beyond repair, the couple chooses to turn them in for gift cards rather than letting them fall into someone else's hands.

“We don't want that stuff around the house because it attracts the wrong people. We didn't just want to throw them away,” she said, adding the $850 in gas station gift cards they collected will ease holiday shopping.

“That'll take care of our Christmas,” Karen said, adding she plans to donate some of the cards to needy families. “If a family needs food because somebody lost their job, we'll give them a gift card.”

Bob Whitcombe, also of St. Cloud, turned in an old shotgun that had been in his closet for 30 years. He used to squirrel hunt with it up north.

“It's a good gun. Just getting it out of my house in case somebody steals it,” Whitcombe said. “It's just a .22 (caliber) but it'll hurt you.”

He plans to give the gas gift card to his son-in-law because “he drives us to supper every Friday night,” Whitcombe said.

When a firearm is relinquished to law enforcement, the agency's firearms specialists check the weapon in several databases before giving it a serial number and logging it into the system.

If a gun is reported stolen, law enforcement will return it to its rightful owner, unless it has been modified in a way that has made it illegal, Kissimmee police spokeswoman Stacie Miller said.

The guns are then turned over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement where they are destroyed.

By 2 p.m. Thursday, Kissimmee police had collected as part of Kicks 4 Guns 26 firearms – mostly handguns – two smoke grenades and two boxes of Black Talons hollow-point bullets at their location on Vine Street in the parking lot of the K-Mart and Big Lots shopping center.

Residents are given a $50 gift card to either Target or Walmart in exchange for their firearms or a $10 gift card to Wawa, K-Mart or Big Lots in exchange for a BB gun that looks like a real gun.

Both events continue until 7 p.m. tonight.