CONYERS, Ga. — A gun buyback program has brought some controversy to a metro Atlanta county.
Rockdale County's sheriff is calling the event an opportunity to potentially get illegal guns off the streets. Just a month earlier, investigators said a Conyers homeowner shot and killed three teen boys who allegedly tried to rob him. The sheriff said one of the teens had an illegal gun.
But there are some people asking if a buyback is the most effective solution.
For both Rockdale and Newton counties, the buyback served as a chance for people to hand in guns for cash - and for the Rockdale County Sheriff's Office, it was a chance to get their hands on weapons that could land in the wrong hands.
"This is not a political event," Pastor Eric Lee of Springfield Baptist Church said. "This is Georgia law. This is [the] Constitution being respected and enforced."
Lee's church was one of several drop-off locations.
"I was just talking with a grandfather who said, 'You know, I got some grandkids, I got some nephews that [are] coming to live in my house and I don't need them finding these guns'," he said. "Also a 22-year-old trying to keep weapons away from his younger siblings."
That's why he said he was surprised to see some of the pushback online this week when the sheriff's office posted on Facebook about the event. A lot of people were raising questions.
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Some included where the money was coming from and where the money would go. Others even questioned why churches like Lee's were getting involved.
"We are in the business of empowering families and empowering parents to have authority in their homes," Lee said. "So, perhaps there are weapons concealed in places that parents are not aware of and we wanted to encourage them to do that."
Pastor Lee said he feels like his church is a safe place for people to come. He said that in Rockdale County alone, deputies collected 70 guns on Saturday. The sheriff's office said in a Facebook post that the ultimate goal is to get stolen guns back to their original owners.
"We understand that guns are controversial," Lee said. "But we think that guns in the hands of children is something that everyone would want to see not happen."
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