A gun buyback scheduled for Saturday was canceled by Farmington City Manager Rob Mayes, who said the event was questioned by the public.
“Chief (Steve) Hebbe and I determined it was apparent the program had not received enough advance education and community collaboration prior to scheduling this event,” Mayes said in a prepared statement. “We will continue to explore educational opportunities and options to assist the public with safely discarding unwanted firearms.”
The buyback was planned through a partnership with New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence. As part of their Guns to Garden programs, surrendered guns are turned into gardening tools by high school students.
One of the people questioning the buyback was real estate agent Bryan Crawford, who brought the concept of drop boxes made for unwanted babies to the Farmington City Council.
“Inviting a liberal anti-gun activist group into Farmington in an effort to disarm the general public in exchange for grocery gift cards was a mistake,” Crawford wrote in a Facebook post. “I am glad the public was heard and you guys chose to do the right thing.”
“Once our elected officials found realized who he (Hebbe) had invited on their behalf, they uninvited them,” Crawford said.
Farmington City Councilor Sean Sharer gave the decision a thumbs-up on Facebook, and reposted the announcement to his page, where Crawford commented, “Great job!”
Miranda Viscoli, co-president of New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, said people should not “spew misinformation” about the group, when they don’t understand its purpose.
“This is not about if you are a Democrat or a Republican, it’s about getting an unwanted gun out of home,” she said, adding the group is trying to prevent gun violence and is not an anti-gun group.
“We hand out free gun locks. What’s radical about that?” Viscoli said “We work with youths to end gun violence. What’s radical about that?”
“Farmington has a real problem with gun violence – some of the worst in the state,” she said.
Viscoli mentioned the May 15 mass shooting on North Dustin Avenue, in which Beau Wilson, 18, who reportedly suffered from mental illness, had access to thousands of rounds of ammunition and walked up and down the street shooting at cars, homes and people.
Wilson killed three woman and injured several others, before he was shot and killed by police.
Mayes’ announcement to end the gun buyback also came on the eve of the six-year anniversary of the Aztec High School shooting, in which former high school student William Atkinson, who suffered from mental illness, entered the school on Dec. 7, 2017, and shot and killed Casey Marquez and Francisco “Paco” Fernandez Jr.
Viscoli said that while some people in the community might disagree with the work her group is doing, she said, “I think we can all agree that a teenager that has mental health issues shouldn’t have a gun.”
“Law-abiding citizens have a right to possess a gun,” Viscoli said.
The buyback was not about that, and New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence is “not a radical gun prevention group,” Viscoli said.
The group, instead, provides people with a safe way to rid themselves of an unwanted firearms. Viscoli said there are stories after stories of people who attend the gun buybacks because someone in their house has “suicidal ideations” and they want the gun out of the house.
A woman who attended a recent gun buyback “was so grateful, because her husband was so depressed and we helped her get the gun out of the home,” Viscoli said.
There are stories about widows with sheds full with guns and they want to discard them.
“You have a high suicide rate in Farmington with guns. When that gun is done being in evidence, it is mailed to the family home in an evidence box,” Viscoli said. “We literally have parents showing up at our buybacks with the gun in the evidence box. Why are we saying, ‘No’ to these parents?”
Viscoli said these are “not anecdotal stories,” they are reality, and the organization even has social workers at the buybacks to help people who might be going through emotional issues while surrendering the gun.
“Those who made these decisions – I hope they think about denying people those opportunities to heal,” she said in response to Mayes’ statement to end the buyback.
Crawford argued on Facebook that the people who want to give up their guns still have options.
“You can surrender your firearms to the police at any time and request their destruction. … The gripe is that the police chief invited an anti-gun activist group into our community. This group has lobbied for the elimination of Constitutional rights. This isn't about public education, this was a police chief pushing the same anti-gun agenda he's been pushing for years.”
But as recently as September, Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe opposed Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s public health order that banned the public carry of weapons in Bernalillo County and how it might affect Farmington.
Hebbe pointed out the governor admitted that under her proposal “either conceal carry or open carry, you acknowledge it’s not going to be followed by the criminals.”
Hebbe weighed in on the debate as Farmington’s chief and as president of the New Mexico Police Chiefs Association. The debate led to a summit on gun crime hosted by Attorney General Raul Torrez on Sept. 26 in Albuquerque.
Viscoli described Hebbe as a leader on helping to prevent gun violence and had been working with the group for a few years to plan the buyback event.
It was not an event sponsored by the police; instead, the department provided officers to safely check the guns to determine if they had been stolen.
“Our role really is just to check the weapons make sure that they’re not loaded, and I think sometimes inadvertently, that still does happen, because sometimes the people turning in guns aren’t really familiar with guns,” Hebbe said in an earlier interview.
He added police would check to see if the gun was stolen and if it was, then they would work to return it to the rightful owner.
There was no cost to the city of Farmington because the gift cards being offered were paid for by New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, Viscoli said. She added that some residents had called the group with plans to trade their guns for gift cards.
“People were planning to get grocery cards and gas cards right before the holidays … and now they won’t be getting them,” she said.
Viscoli said she still plans to work on gun violence prevention in the Farmington area.
“This isn’t about taking away people’s guns who want to keep them. This isn’t about disarming citizens,” Viscoli said.
“Every time there is an incident of gun violence in Farmington, we can ask ourselves could it have been prevented,” she said. “Every time there is a suicide with a gun in Farmington, we can ask ourselves could that have been prevented.”
