Law enforcement experts recommend a statewide gun amnesty buyback program that they think would help decrease gun violence in Hawaii.

Gun buyback programs allow residents to trade in firearms for cash or gift cards with a “no questions asked” policy. The idea is to help people dispose of firearms in a safe way without interfering with anyone’s constitutional rights, according to a study by the state Attorney General’s Office.

“An unwanted gun collected and destroyed is one less gun that can get in the wrong hands,” according to the study of gun amnesty programs in other states.

The Honolulu Police Department has conducted four gun buyback events that lasted two weeks each, most recently in 2000. Participants were given $50 Foodland gift certificates, and Honolulu fire stations functioned as drop-off locations, according to the report.

The four buyback programs in Honolulu collected 1,498 firearms. Police checked to see whether the guns were stolen and notified the owners if they were. The remaining guns were sent to a metal recycling company to be shredded.

The program was funded by Buyback America, a program started by the federal Housing and Urban Development Department. The study also reviewed gun amnesty programs in other states, including:

>> San Diego, where authorities collected 164 firearms during an event in 2017.

>> Austin, Texas, where 700 firearms were removed from circulation during events in 2010 and 2011.

>> Tampa, Fla., where 521 firearms were brought in during an event in 2015.

Ten assault rifles were collected in San Diego and Austin. All three cities were attempting to prevent crime and keep unused or unwanted guns out of the hands of criminals.

‘Total waste of time’

Local Second Amendment activists attended each of the mainland events and offered participants higher prices for the unwanted firearms, according to the report. One activist group in Texas that bought firearms said they planned to distribute the weapons to locals “in need, who cannot afford them,” according to the study.

Harvey Gerwig, president and director of the Hawaii Rifle Association, described buyback efforts as “a total waste of time,” adding, “It’s a total waste of money.”

“There is no place that has definitive evidence that this works,” he said. Funding for a gun buyback program would be better spent on fixing the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), a crime reporting database maintained by the FBI.

“When you start looking at the school shootings, there are so many failures there — that people should not have been able to buy a gun. But they were able to buy it through normal channels because the NICS system didn’t work,” said Gerwig.

However, if there are more gun buyback programs in Hawaii, the association would not attempt to outbid the authorities to buy the firearms at a higher price, he said.

“At that point you become a gun dealer,” Gerwig said. “Although we have a number of licensed gun dealers on the board and in our membership, that is not something we would get involved in. That is so far out beyond the scope of what we were established for.”

Police chiefs in each Hawaii county supported the idea of a gun amnesty buyback program but agreed some logistics need to be worked out. Darryl Perry, Kauai County chief of police, said he plans to run a buyback program this year.

The Attorney General’s Office acknowledged that most of the firearms turned in during a buyback event are “least likely” to be used for criminal activities.

State Rep. Cindy Evans (D, Kaupulehua-Waimea- Halaula) sponsored House Concurrent Resolution 55, which called for the study.

In 2016, 53,400 permits were issued statewide, according to a 2017 report about firearm registrations in Hawaii.