The Safety's Off: So, What Did a Non-Believer Learn at Saturday's Gun Buy Back?

As he promised last week, right after we first mentioned Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway's offer to swap guns for $50 Kroger gift cards, D contributing editor Trey Garrison went out to Reunion Arena to make folks a better offer. (The city collected 147, incidentally.) What he and Best...

By Robert Wilonsky

March 2, 2009

[
        {
          "name": "Air - MediumRectangle - Inline Content - Mobile Display Size",
          "component": "18855504",
          "insertPoint": "2",
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "2"
        },{
          "name": "Editor Picks",
          "component": "17105533",
          "insertPoint": "4",
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "1"
        },{
          "name": "Inline Links",
          "component": "18349797",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 8,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "7",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Air - MediumRectangle - Combo - Inline Content",
          "component": "17105532",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 8,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "7",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Inline Links",
          "component": "18349797",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 12,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "11",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Air - Leaderboard Tower - Combo - Inline Content",
          "component": "17105535",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 12,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "11",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        }
      ]

As he promised last week, right after we first mentioned Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway's offer to swap guns for $50 Kroger gift cards, D contributing editor Trey Garrison went out to Reunion Arena to make folks a better offer. (The city collected 147, incidentally.) What he and Best of Texas's Amanda Warr returned with instead was a lengthy video and accompanying story documenting how the twosome spent their Saturday morning: visiting with Caraway (who says of those making better offers, that's "one of the worst attitudes in the middle of a positive situations"), Mayor Tom Leppert and some of the folks who dropped off their revolvers and shotguns. What the twosome wanted to know from all involved was, simply, Why? But as Trey writes today, because the video didn't get all of it:

We met Sonya Whitaker. She told us how she was turning in an old rusty revolver her granddad gave her that was useless. Her South Oak Cliff house had been burglarized twice, and she didn't want some criminal getting it.
She also told us the police weren't doing enough in South Oak Cliff to combat crime, and maybe turning in this old useless lump of iron might show good faith.
Sonya mused that if perhaps she showed that good faith, then perhaps her city would show faith in her community and patrol a little more often.

KEEP THE OBSERVER FREE... Since we started the Dallas Observer, it has been defined as the free, independent voice of Dallas, and we'd like to keep it that way. Your membership allows us to continue offering readers access to our incisive coverage of local news, food, and culture with no paywalls. You can support us by joining as a member for as little as $1.