Buyback Project Nets Three Guns

Only three guns were turned in during the first-ever Pocatello Youth Forum gun buyback project.

But Robert Foster figures he met his goal and more.

“Our goal was to get one gun,” said the Highland High School student and forum chairman. “We figured if we got one gun off the street, it would be a total success, because that one gun could have taken anybody’s life if in the wrong hands.”

He said the buyback idea came from similar programs elsewhere.

During the Saturday event, a shotgun, a .44-caliber revolver and a pellet gun were turned in for $30 in gift certificates.

Pocatello Police Lt. Garry Pritchett acknowledged none of the guns were illegal, but the department said it would accept guns of .117-caliber or more.

“These are the weapons that are easily made illegal by cutting off the stock and the barrel and making it into a sawed-off shotgun,” Pritchett said.