By Charles W. Kim, Managing Editor
The Township Council will consider a former councilman’s request for the community to develop a program for residents to surrender guns to police.
Former Councilman John O’Sullivan made the proposal to the governing body Tuesday night during the public portion of the meeting.
”We are all aware, now more than ever, about people having legal licensed and illegal unlicensed weapons and some being used to commit crimes,” Mr. O’Sullivan said while reading from a prepared statement. “The idea of a gun amnesty program is to help get unlicensed and illegal weapons off our streets. This can be accomplished by having our Police Department set up a time and place where people can come in and turn in their weapons under a grant of amnesty which has been done by many towns and cities in the United States.”
Unlike previous programs run in conjunction with Middlesex County that bought the surrendered weapons, Mr. O’Sullivan said the program would be voluntary and not cost the township any money to implement.
Councilman Charles Carley said he felt it was a good idea “in the light of the last two months” which saw the shooting of 20 first grade students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and the killing of two firemen during an ambush in upstate New York.
Mayor Frank Gambatese said he and Township Manager Bernie Hvozdovic would speak to Chief of Police Raymond Hayducka about the idea and to see it could be implemented.
Sgt. James Ryan, department spokesman, said Wednesday that police routinely take surrendered weapons as a regular course of operations.
Sgt. Ryan said that in many cases, a parent or relative may have passed away and a gun is discovered by the family and is no longer wanted.
He said that any resident could turn an unwanted gun into police by simply calling ahead to schedule a time to drop it off at police headquarters in the Route 522 municipal complex.
Sgt. Ryan said it is important to call first instead of showing up at headquarters with a weapon.

