LYNWOOD — Thinking outside the box is how county Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas described the Sheriff’s Department’s Gift for Guns Program as he spoke during a press conference in front of City Hall Saturday, where by 10:30 a.m. more than 50 guns had already been surrendered in exchange for $100 or $200 gift cards.

One individual turned in five rifles. He seemed a bit nervous as sheriff’s deputies removed the weapons from the trunk of his vehicle, but no questions were asked and no name was given and before driving away, completely and totally anonymous, he received $800 worth of gift cards.

By the end of the day, 143 weapons had been turned in at City Hall.

According to Sheriff Lee Baca, it’s that trust that is the most important element of the Sheriff’s Department’s Gift for Guns Program, now going on it’s fourth year.

“This program wouldn’t be successful without that trust,” Baca said. “There are no questions asked. … Trust is critical to the program, to the bringing of these weapons from the neighborhoods and out of the wrong hands.”

While he is confident that many of the weapons surrendered — 3,000 since 2005 — have been used in crimes, the ultimate goal is to get the guns out of the hands of those individuals, period.

Before they are melted down, if a weapon happens to match one that could have been used in a crime, at least, said the sheriff, “we can be thankful that that weapon will no longer be used in a crime.”

The Gifts for Guns Program allows county residents to anonymously and safely turn in guns and firearms to law enforcement offices in exchange for gift cards.

With the cities of Lynwood, Lancaster and Norwalk kicking off a new ongoing program throughout the county, after a successful two-weekend run in Compton before the holidays last year, this is exactly the kind of “thinking outside of the box” that Ridley-Thomas said, “I’m talking about.”

“Now that’s what I call smart thinking,” he said pointing to a table covered with the weapons surrendered between 9 and 11 a.m. on Saturday morning. “I am pleased to be a part of the thinking that says that we need to be proactive, a thinking that says we need to be imaginative, a thinking that says that we need to be creative about public safety. In other words, this is an effort to incentivize those who have weapons in their possession, weapons in their homes and otherwise, weapons that they know shouldn’t be readily available.”

Equally important, he said, is that the Gift for Guns Program is one more tool to manage crime, to increase safety in the communities of Los Angeles County, and that it is a “smart way” to get guns off the streets.

“It is clear that the goal is being accomplished,” Ridley-Thomas said. “By causing this many weapons — weapons that are used for no other purpose than for war on the communities of which they are apart of — to be surrendered. … Our job is to establish peace, safety, liberty and justice for all. That’s what we are basically doing.”

Gang violence reduction plan efforts will also be stepped up, said the supervisor.

“You can count this as one piece of the larger puzzle to make sure that public safety is a priority for the people of the county of Los Angeles,” he said. “Out of the box thinking [like this] is what’s going to be the salvation of our communities, and it seems to me we are well on our way with that regard.”

After Compton, the program was taken to Lennox — again with great success. Through the end of May, the program will be held 13 more times in various cities throughout the county.

Even though the Sheriff’s Department has seen a 25 percent decrease in violent crimes where weapons are used in the last couple of months, it is hard to determine if the program can be attributed to that drop.

Dan Feuerlicht, a Rancho Palos Verdes resident, who brought in one gun, doesn’t think the program will help in getting the guns out of the wrong hands.

“The people surrendering the guns aren’t the gang members,” he said. “I don’t envision anybody turning in a weapon unless they purchased it years ago, or because they lost a job and they need the money … or like myself, my son just turned 19 months and my wife and I decided we didn’t want a gun in the house. But, honestly, I doubt that this program will reduce the number of illegally obtained weapons.”

It is good thinking, Feuerlicht said, but he doesn’t see the program as a solution to winning the war on violence in the streets of Los Angeles.

The best thing about this program is that it sn’t just a crime prevention strategy, said Baca, but it is also a home-safety strategy.

“The idea is to get as many weapons off the streets as possible,” he said. “A lot of these weapons, just sitting around the house, often get picked up by kids, and sometimes they’re loaded, and they accidentally kill other children. You see it on the news all the time.”

At the same time, Baca said people who have guns in the house risk the guns getting into the wrong hands after break-ins.

“At the same time we have impulsive gang members who go after these hidden weapons in homes and go out and shoot not only other gang members, but innocent children and women and men, and we have plenty of documentation when those indiscriminatory shootings have taken lives,” Baca said. “All weapons have the capacity to kill, and they all do, when they are in the presence of someone who is desperate, a criminal, who has revenge in mind … and they will pick up that weapon as quickly as they can and commit murder.”

The average is, that if one or two of these weapons are turned in, those weapons will not be readily available to the wrong individuals, Baca added.

Ridley-Thomas said gun safety — and non-violent attitudes — should start in the home. He encouraged parents to teach, preach and practice non-violence.

“If we can model that in our homes, then we can expect a drop in crime,” he said. As the latest addition to the Board of Supervisors, Ridley-Thomas said he is already working on partnering with the Los Angeles Unified School District to make the practice of non-violence and mediation and conflict resolution a part of the curriculum.

Among pushing for more school-based health centers, the supervisor said, he will be pushing for more conflict resolution in communities. “If you think about it, it all boils down to being proactive, rather than reactive,” he said. That’s what is good about the Gift for Guns Program.

Lilia Salazar-Palon didn’t mind giving her name to the media. She said after her husband died four years ago, she didn’t know what to do with the four guns he owned. In fact, the deputies taking the guns out of the trunk of her car told her that the guns were loaded. She said she didn’t know that, and was glad that she could dispose of them in a safe way.

Inglewood resident Uanita Black’s father died in January. She said she found two handguns in his home that she didn’t even know he owned.

“I didn’t know what to do with them, because you just can’t donate them, and you can’t throw them in the trash,” she said. “I have three teenage kids in the house. … I didn’t even know the history of the guns, but I would hate for them to fall into the wrong hands. Maybe the program won’t work for some people, but as a mom, it gives you peace of mind to know that you got rid of them safely.”