US launches gun buyback programme

"We must do many things to stop gun violence," Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo said, calling the Columbine, Colorado, shootings of April 20, 1999, "senseless" and pleading with Congress to pass tough gun-control legislation.

Police departments and public housing authorities taking part in the `BuyBack America’ programme will be able to use funds from HUD’s Drug Elimination Grant Programme to purchase guns that are voluntarily surrendered.

Cuomo called Opposition from US Lawmakers to the buyback programme and the administration’s push for tighter gun controls "wrong." "I think they are wrong on the issue of guns across the board," he said.

Under the buyback programme, localities would be able to pay individuals for the guns they turn over, using either cash or some kind of merchandise credit voucher. The department recommended paying $ 50 per gun.

Last fall, President Bill Clinton created the programme, which will ultimately public housing authorities $ 15 million to work with local law-enforcement agencies and businesses to help take thousands of firearms out of circulation.

"Our acts of gun violence in this country set global records. Children are 12 times more likely to die of gunshots in this country than the 25 other industrialised nations combined," Cuomo said.

But in Massachusetts on Tuesday, gun dealers prepared to sue the state for millions of dollars in compensation for guns made illegal by new consumer-protection regulations.

"We’re saying if you don’t give people notice … then you have to pay for the product you’ve rendered unsaleable," Ed George, a Boston lawyer, told reporters.