Keeping the streets safe from the scourge of foam bullets.
Keeping the streets safe from the scourge of foam bullets.
(Buffalo News) — This was a different kind of gun buyback program.
The guns being bought back from the streets weren’t 9 mm handguns or Glocks. Instead, they were Nerf guns or toy pistols.
And they weren’t being bought with cash. This time, the currency was pizza slices, notebooks and dress shirts.
The FATHERS group and Bona Pizza teamed up Monday for a buyback aimed at younger teens and preteens at the pizzeria at Bailey and Kensington avenues.
The idea was simple: Don’t let kids get used to firing weapons, even if they’re toys.
“It makes them too comfortable, holding that gun,” said Leonard Lane, president of Fathers Armed Together to Help, Educate, Restore and Save. “Then there’s no fear holding the real gun when they get older. We want to put that fear back into our children, teaching them what guns can do, how they affect their community.”
“A toy gun today, a real gun tomorrow,” said Charles Cina, owner of Bona Pizza. “That’s what we want to stop.”
So kids such as Tarence Callaham, 14, a Buffalo ninth-grader, brought in his green and orange Nerf gun. In return, Tarence got a piece of pepperoni pizza, a snazzy dress shirt and the chance to shoot some hoops in the pizzeria parking lot.
“I learned that you shouldn’t have guns and stuff,” Tarence said. “It gives kids an education not to play with bad things.”
Tynell Ruffins, 9, a fourth-grader at Community Charter School, got a bigger haul in return for his orange and black Nerf gun. He got the pizza, a soft drink, a notebook, a dress shirt and a Marvel Heroes folder.
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