While attending the recent “Gun Buyback Event” held in Davis by the Yolo County Sheriff’s Department, I was impressed by the logic of people I spoke with who wanted to get rid of their firearms.

No one was forcing them to discard some perfectly good rifles and handguns, or still useable antiques. There were, in fact, no questions asked. If people wanted to turn in their guns and they was still functional, then they got a gift card. As simple as that.

While at the event, I spoke with Lt. Don Harmon and Sgt. Jeremy Hembree who filled me in on the program. All of us hoped it would do some good and perhaps save lives.

Sometimes, there was a single handgun in the trunk of a vehicle, packed in a cigar box. Sometimes there were rifles — or “long guns” as they are called. Most of the long guns I saw were aged or fairly new shotguns along with 30.06 “deer rifles,” as I knew them in my youth.

My experience over the decades with law enforcement officials is that they aren’t opposed to people owning guns, only that people generally have not been trained how to use them. No one drives a car without training and no one should own a gun without training either.

My personal experience is that many people learn how to shoot by watching crime dramas on television. They don’t know anything beyond the type of ammo needed. They don’t practice at an approved gun range. They don’t know how to clean their weapons. They don’t keep them secured at home.

Because I was raised in Idaho, I was trained at an early age on how to use firearms and how to keep them clean and secured.

I kept my family’s antique shotgun when I left the state decades ago. I still have it disassembled in an unsecured closet. Because my late wife and daughter were opposed to firearms, I never bought any 12-guage shells. I wasn’t going to leave even a disabled shotgun in the house with live ammunition around.

When I spoke with people dropping off their firearms, I was impressed at how willing they were to offer their reasons for doing so.

One woman turned in what appeared to be an old six-shot police pistol — at least it looked like a police pistol of the type my father inherited from his father. It would have been a .38-caliber.

The woman explained it had belonged to her grandfather and was probably 100 years old. “It has been wrapped in tissue paper, in a drawer, for about 70 years,” she said. “We don’t need to have it in the house.”

The person who impressed me the most was a man, who seemed to be in his 40s. He had a good-looking shotgun. In fact, it looked like an assault-style shotgun: Black in color, mainly plastic, no stock and kept in a black carry-case. He said his child was suffering severe depression and he didn’t want any guns in the home.

I really felt for him. Too many times, have I reported on children who have taken their own lives or the lives of others, because they were depressed or angry; thought the firearm was unloaded or were playing.

I think the father did the right thing. I think all those who turned in their weapons did the right thing because they had the right reasons.

Jim Smith is the former editor of The Daily Democrat, retiring in 2021 after a 27-year career at the paper.