Chicago Gun Buy-Back Nabs 6,000 Weapons

For the fourth year in a row, the city of Chicago conducted a gun buy-back yesterday hoping to get over 14,000 illegal weapons off the streets by luring gun owners with $100 pre-paid MasterCards for each gun turned in. But despite pleas earlier in the week from Mayor Daley and Police Superintendent Jody Weis, only 6,000 guns were collected. It's surprising that more people were not stirred into action with rousing hyperbole like this:

"It's like having gasoline sitting in your home, sitting there, and you're lighting a wick every night and you're wondering whether or not it's going to go off, and it goes off like that in your hand," Daley said.

Annette Nance-Holt, the mother of a boy killed by gun violence, had some more practical advice urging teens to not sit idly by while their friends are toting handguns in their backpacks.

"For you young people, the new word for you is: 'Start snitching,' " she said. "Start telling before it's too late and your mother is standing up here."

In other news, two men were killed last night in two separate shooting incidents on the South Side. Another man was shot to death early this morning. [S-T, Trib, Photo of our kind of gun by rachelleb]