Tampa leaders hope gun buyback will reduce shootings

 After a wave of gun violence, Tampa city leaders announced plans for a gun buyback.

And who knows the impact of gun violence better than Danielle Williams or Edward Harris?

Williams lost her 14-year-old son to a shooting at a Tampa birthday party in March.

"I don't want to do nothing that I used to do, I just basically stay home," she said.

Harris lost his own son in a drive-by-shooting in May at a park.

"I am never going to be the same. I lost my baby boy," Harris said.

During the first five months of 2014, there were 320 gun-related crimes in Tampa.

In 2015, that number has soared 38 percent to 443.

Four teenagers have been killed so far this year.

"We are going after the guns," said Mayor Bob Buckhorn.

On June 27 at River Tower Park, the city will offer $50 to anyone who turns in a gun, no questions asked.

"We need to get the guns, not out of the hands of legally, law-abiding gun owners," said Buckhorn. "We need to get them out of the hands of folks who are incapable of owning a gun and are pre-disposed to use it."

Tampa Police bought 1,000 guns during their most-recent buyback in 2011.

They didn't immediately have numbers on whether it helped slow gun violence, but argued the increase in Tampa shootings is paralleled by a nationwide problem of guns in the hands of teens, criminals and the mentally ill.

The mayor pointed to Wednesday night's massacre in a Charleston church.

"Guns in the wrong hands end up with catastrophic events," said Buckhorn.

The families of dead teens applaud the buyback.

"We have to start somewhere," said Harris. "A little bit of something is better than a whole lot of nothing."