The national debate over guns continues to swell in the wake of the recent massacre of 19 schoolchildren and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, and as mass shootings continue in communities across the nation, seemingly unabated.
In the Bay Area, a gun buyback on Saturday organized by Marin County attracted a surprising number of people. And separately, hundreds of residents joined a march against guns across the Golden Gate Bridge.
“We expected a lot of people, but not this many people,” San Rafael Police Chief David Spiller said, looking out at a line of cars outside of the Marin County Sheriff’s Office, where the gun buyback was taking place.
The county of Marin, in partnership with several local police agencies and city governments, held the buyback event. It allows people to bring in guns they no longer want and drop them off, no questions asked. The firearms are then destroyed.
San Mateo County also hosted a gun buyback on Saturday, at a parking lot in South San Francisco.
The Marin buyback event opened at 9 am By then, there were already dozens of cars waiting.
“I think people’s attitudes towards guns are changing,” said Kate Colin, the mayor of San Rafael. “After the mass shootings we’ve seen recently, I think people are wondering, ‘What can we do in our own homes?’ — What they can do is this.”
Traffic near the anonymous gun buyback program at the Marin County Sheriff’s Office.
Felix Uribe/Special to The ChronicleSpiller said he expected the event to pull hundreds of guns off the streets.
“It just warms our hearts to see so many people out here,” said Lori Frugoli, the Marin County district attorney, adding that they’d been fundraising for months. After the mass shooting at the elementary school in Uvalde, she said, donations spiked.
Brother and sister John Anderson and Ellin Purdom got to the buy back as soon as it opened — though they still had to wait in line. They’d inherited several guns from a father-in-law — “he was a gun guy,” Anderson said — and they wanted “to get rid of them.”
“This is so great,” Purdom said. “We’re just so thankful to get these out of the house and off the street.”
Meanwhile, just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, organizers with Moms Demand Action, an advocacy group fighting for gun safety, were gathering for their annual Wear Orange walk against gun violence.
Shannon Watts, the group’s founder, said that the event was about bringing awareness to the issue, this year and every year, and “continuing the momentum” in the fight to get politicians to pass more common sense gun safety laws.
“This is about everyday gun violence,” she said. “Our anger and our outreach can’t subsidize.”
Several hours before the event, police in Petaluma responded to a call just before midnight at the Roaring Donkey bar, where a patron threatened staff, saying he was going to “shoot up” the establishment, according to officials. The suspect left before police arrived, but the threat was considered credible and several local bars decided to close early for the night. Police officials said they were conducting extra patrols in the area.
A recent study from The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions found that in 2020, there were an average of 124 people killed by a gun everyday in the United States — 15 higher than in 2019.
The hundreds of attendees included congresswoman Jackie Speier. Participants of all ages held signs saying “Protect our children, not guns,” and “DO SOMETHING.”
Dr. Mike Schrader, president of the San Francisco Marin Medical Society, said it is important for him to participate in the walk to bring more awareness to gun violence and push for measures like background checks and red flag laws, more regulation of ghost guns and “reasonable restrictions” on guns.
“So many people get killed by gun violence of all kinds,” he said. “That’s why this is so important.”
“I can’t even count the number of people I’ve seen injured or killed by guns,” added Dr. Monique Schaulis, an emergency room physician and the past president of the group.
After a short rally, the marches carried their signs across the Golden Gate Bridge, quickly filling the pedestrian walkway in a sea of orange.
“This is a peaceful way to promote gun sense,” said Mimi Pratt, a volunteer with the San Francisco chapter of Moms Demand Action. “With all the work we do, it’s good to see everyone out here and bring visibility to the issues.”
Danielle Echeverria is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: danielle.echeverria@sfchronicle.com