PlayStations for guns are offered up in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS — Dozens of cars lined up outside a New Orleans church parking lot this week as residents flocked to exchange firearms for video game consoles through a city-supported gun buyback initiative meant to improve public safety as Louisiana loosens gun ownership laws.

Leticia Clanton, 50, waited all morning Tuesday for the opportunity. While she had a permit to carry a concealed handgun she had owned for the past decade, she also has eight young grandchildren running around her home. Clanton chose to swap her weapon for a PlayStation 5 worth about $500.

“With all the grandkids and all the violence that they got going on, it’s time to get it up off the street,” Clanton said. As for the PlayStation? “It’s going to be for all of them to share when they come to the house.”

Over the course of two hours, city police officers received and dismantled 32 revolvers, shotguns and semi-automatics, all traded in with no questions asked as long the guns were functional. In all, the city collected 94 guns through three buybacks over the last six months, all involving swaps for gaming devices.

A local nonprofit, Unchained Realities, organized the exchanges as part of its Nola Grown gaming program that engages young people in the city with gaming. The nonprofit established two centers for youth to build skills and open up pathways to the gaming world, whether as a competitive player or through game development, graphic design and coding. A third center is in the works.

“If my inbox is filled up with people who say they want to do this, I just felt a necessity to go out and try to raise some more money,” said J.D. Carrere, co-director of the gaming program. Tuesday's event was paid for mainly through donations from two private businesses.

Louisiana loosens restrictions on gun ownership

Carrere said the buybacks came in response to Louisiana's more relaxed gun ownership restrictions and harsher sentencing for violent crimes.

Shortly after taking office in 2024, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry pushed a tough-on-crime agenda through the GOP-dominated Legislature. The laws passed include mandating 17-year-olds be charged as adults and require anyone convicted of a crime to serve 85% of their sentence before they can be released.

Another law which went into effect in August allows most people 18 years or older to carry a concealed weapon without a government permit, a firearms training course or getting their fingerprints taken — all previous legal requirements.

Landry's office did not respond to a request for comment.

New Orleans has historically had one of the nation’s highest homicide rates and city officials have often clashed with the rest of conservative Louisiana over how to handle violent crime. However, murders and non-fatal shootings have decreased significantly in the past two years, according to the New Orleans Police Department.

Do gun buybacks work?

There have been hundreds of gun buybacks around the country, but quantitative studies such as a 2021 report from the National Bureau of Economic Research have not indicated that they do much to noticeably reduce violent crime.

Critics say buybacks only collect a fraction of the guns on the streets, fail to reach the people most likely to commit crimes and come with lots of loopholes. During a statewide gun buyback in New York in 2022, a man claimed $21,000 in gift cards by mass-producing 3D printed guns.

Community leaders in New Orleans say the PlayStation swap should be seen not as a one-off, but as part of broader community engagement strategy that also raises awareness and connects families with city-supported gaming programs for their kids.

“To simply take a gun away is not enough,” Carrere said. “I think to replace it with opportunity is really what we’re doing.”

Carrere said he considers the gun buyback initiative successful if it stops even one person from using the gun to commit a crime. He points out it is likely less expensive to hand out PlayStations than imprison someone for armed robbery.

“We all win because we don’t have to deal with another death, we don’t have to deal with another family losing loved ones either by gunshot or by jail,” Carrere said. “And we don’t have to then strain the system.”