Need $50? Gun Buy Back At City Park

Have guns?

Will buy.

From noon to 3 p.m. Saturday, Denver residents are invited to sell their firearms - working or not - for $50 each at the "Anti-violence and Gun Buy Back Rally" in front of the Martin Luther King Jr. statue in City Park.

Sponsors, including Denver officials and community organizers, hope to raise $5,000 to $10,000 to buy the guns.

Activist and organizer Alvertis Simmons said he and others organized the event after the September shooting death of popular hot dog vendor Quincy Henderson in Curtis Park.

Henderson was known by customers and friends as the "hot dog dude" who sold dogs and chili in Five Points.

Simmons said he met Henderson's family after the deadly gunfire and was moved to action.

"We have had in the past so much gun violence," said Simmons. "We need to do something . . . Whether it's a Saturday night special or guns that people are not using, guns that are sitting in the house. We don't want people to go break into the home and steal that gun and use that gun in a commission of a crime."

Lawrence Miles, a cousin of Henderson's, said he will appear at the rally. Miles said Henderson was shot after he became embroiled in a fistfight and an assailant pulled a gun.

"What we're trying to get across in this community is that there's enough, enough, enough gun violence," said Miles, who is an aspiring rap artist, as was Henderson. "I don't want to see no more. I've had enough, and I'm standing 100 percent behind this."

The Rocky Mountain News