FREEHOLD – Following a successful gun buyback held in Asbury Park last weekend, a second such event will be held next month, Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Lori Linskey announced Friday.
The second gun buyback in as many months is scheduled to take place from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, November 20 at the Bethel AME Church on Waterworks Road in Freehold Township.
The event is being sponsored by the Prosecutor’s Office, the Monmouth County Sheriff’s Office, under the leadership of Sheriff Shaun Golden; the Freehold Borough Police Department, under the leadership of Chief Craig W. Dispenza; the Freehold Township Police Department, under the leadership of Chief George K. Baumann; and the Bethel AME Church, under the leadership of the Rev. Ronald L. Sparks.
The payment schedule for the Freehold gun buyback will differ slightly from that of the event in Asbury Park; assault weapons will be collected in exchange for $250 in cash, handguns for $100 apiece, and shotguns and rifles for $25 apiece. There will be no cash compensation for ammunition, replica guns, or BB and pellet guns. All weapons must be transported to the gun buyback safely, unloaded, in a secured box or carry case, or with a trigger lock.
As with the Asbury Park event, the gun buyback will be strictly anonymous, with no questions asked of those surrendering firearms. There will also again be no limit on the number of firearms that can be turned in per person.
Today’s announcement comes on the heels of a New Jersey Office of the Attorney General press conference hosted yesterday at the National Guard Armory in Lawrenceville, where Acting Attorney General Andrew J. Bruck announced that nearly 3,000 firearms were turned in by residents at state- and locally sponsored gun buyback events held across the state on Saturday, October 23 at 10 locations, including Asbury Park.
A total of 360 firearms, including 159 handguns, 133 rifles and shotguns, and three assault weapons were surrendered over the course of about eight hours in Asbury Park.
“We couldn’t be prouder of our results in Monmouth County, where more firearms were collected at a single site during a gun buyback event than at any point in more than eight years,” Acting Monmouth County First Assistant Prosecutor Michael Wojciechowski said. “Those results illustrated obvious and robust interest in the availability of such programs, and we are pleased to offer yet another chance, on the other side of the county, for individuals to safely and anonymously rid themselves of unwanted firearms in exchange for cash.”
The two gun buyback events in Asbury Park and Freehold marked Monmouth County’s first such events since 2017.
