Taking Guns Off Jersey’s Streets [AUDIO]

The city of Camden's latest gun buy-back program is being hailed as a big success, and part of it appears to be because of the school shooting tragedy in Connecticut a few days ago.

State Attorney General Jeff Chiesa says more than 11 hundred guns were turned in during the two day program at the end of last week.

"Interestingly, we took in twice as many guns on Saturday as we did on Friday, and we do know that a number of people remarked as they brought their guns in that they wanted these guns out of their house now…I will look into the possibility and the likelihood of trying to do some of these programs in other communities that would like to do them."

He says, "We have to keep forging ahead, using all of the strategies at our disposal - and while we're at it, we have to think of new strategies as well - here in New Jersey, inaction is not an option…We're not going to simply throw up our hands and say the gun violence problem is too big- we're going to act, and we're going to innovate, and working together we're going to continue to do everything in our power to make communities safer by getting guns off the streets."

Chiesa adds, "We have among the nation's strictest gun laws in this state - and the Governor has said to me on more than one occasion that he expects those laws to be enforced…Every gun we take out of circulation is one less gun that can be used in a way that can harm these communities that these guns are found in."

He also says for people who have questions in their mind, for people who don't feel safe, like they're qualified to have some of these weapons in their home, "and they don't know how to use it - they should feel free to reach out to the local police department , and to the extent we're able to do these initiatives in other locations in New Jersey - and it's where they live - they should feel free to come down and bring their weapons in the future."