Sask. police announce second province-wide gun amnesty

Police forces in Saskatchewan announced Monday they’re teaming up to take any unwanted guns off residents’ hands through a province-wide gun amnesty.

Until April 19, people can call their local police detachment to pick up any ammunition or firearms they’d like to get rid of — legal or illegal — with no charges on the table. However, all guns will be checked for any possible criminal affiliation. After that, they’ll be destroyed.

The program first began in Regina in 2017 and was expanded last year to include the rest of the province.

Marlo Pritchard, chief of the Weyburn Police Service and head of the Saskatchewan Association of Chiefs of Police, said the amnesty’s aim is to collect as many unwanted or unused guns as possible — all in an effort to make communities safer.

“We do know weapons are stolen in (break-and-enters) and those weapons usually end up — or can end up — in a violent crime, so by removing that opportunity, we believe that it’s increasing public safety,” he explained.

Due to the newness of the program, Pritchard said it’s too early to track any data on whether the amnesty is cutting down on gun crime across Saskatchewan.

“We are still seeing an increase in gun violence, or at least the prevalence in firearms being used, so (the amnesty) is just one piece of that,” he said. “If we can get some of those unwanted weapons off the street, we think it will help in the long term.”

Pritchard reminds people not to bring their firearms into police stations, but to make arrangements with their local police detachments to pick them up.

Last year, thousands of rounds of ammunition and 369 guns were collected throughout the province. Of those, 275 were shotguns or rifles, 42 were handguns, 32 were pellet guns, 18 were prohibited, one was an antique and another was a starter pistol.