Photo Op – Watch guns get crushed on Sat. at City Welding & Fabrication

• Most 5- and 6-year-olds are strong enough to pull the trigger on the average handgun.*
• 90 percent of suicide attempts with a gun are fatal, while 4 percent of those not involving a gun are fatal.**

WHO:              Michael Hirsh, MD, UMass Memorial Health and Worcester Division of Public Health
                        Joseph Early, Jr., District Attorney, Worcester County
                        Deputy Police Chief McGinn, Worcester
                        Police Chiefs from Charlton, Fitchburg, Northborough, Milford and Worcester

WHAT:            Press Conference for annual Gun Buyback Program “Guns to Gardens” 

WHEN:            Thursday, December 7, 2023, 10 a.m.

WHERE:         Mercantile Center Lobby, 100 Front Street, Worcester. Parking in garage with entrance on Commercial Street.  Level 3 of garage is even with the lobby.

WHY:              The 21^st annual guns buyback program – Guns to Gardens - now encompasses six collection sites in Central Massachusetts and residents drop off guns and/or pick up gun locks at any of the six collection sites. Guns will be exchanged for gift cards, supplied by     UMass Memorial Health Care and the Worcester County District Attorney’s Office, of varying amounts: $50 rifle, $100 pistol and $150 semiautomatic weapon of any kind. Gun owners can pick up a free trigger lock from these same sites even if they are not bringing in a gun. Since the inception of the Goods to Guns program, 4,014 guns have been turned into law enforcement officials in Central Massachusetts.   

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*The Pediatric Practice Research Group

                           *Annals of Internal Medicine 171, no. 12 (2019): 885–95

Sites and times for the 2023 Gun Buyback