A gun for a rose?

On February 14, 2009, the Associated Press had an article about a gun buy back program.  The original link for Google Hosted News doesn't work, but I found the same article on Fox News:

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Police in South Carolina gave away roses on Valentine's Day. All you had to do to get one for your sweetie was turn in a gun.

Hoping to get the weapons off the streets with the "Guns for Roses" program, authorities in two central South Carolina cities set up a program where anyone who turned in a gun received a free rose and a Best Buy gift card.

At a Columbia church, five cars lined up to give away guns before the exchange had even started. At the end of the day, Columbia area police had collected 191 weapons and police in Sumter collected 32.

I posted the article to a message board and said:

This sounds like a dangerous precedent.

Someone wrote:

Me thinks this 'turn in' program is more for PC show, than something that will amount to anything in terms of reduced crime due to guns.

To me, this whole gun control idea is BS: it's like trying to put The Genie back into the bottle. Waste of time. But if someone commits a crime with a gun - then the courts should hang 'em high.

I responded with:

Liberals tend to believe that it will reduce crime. Now I might be a little paranoid, but this seems like a very subtle way to take guns away from people. Perhaps the small number won't make the difference, but it is the act itself that bothers me.

It seems like in Freakonomics the authors claim that more freedom or more restriction would cause problems and that the status quo is the best option.