Warren A. Brown went on a $15,000 spending spree, and yesterday he felt the richer for it.
Mr. Brown wasn't doing holiday shopping when he spent a big stack of $50 bills Saturday. He was buying guns at his downtown law office from anyone -- with no questions asked -- to get them off Baltimore's streets.
Yesterday the defense lawyer totaled his purchases: 265 weapons -- 182 handguns, 22 sawed-off shotguns and 61 rifles -- at a cost of a "tad over $15,000."
Police said it was the most successful recent gun buyback day in Baltimore.
Mr. Brown turned the weapons over to police officers who supervised the transactions and checked the guns (more than 30 were loaded). Ballistics tests will be run to see if any were used in crimes before the weapons are destroyed, said Sam Ringgold, a police spokesman. "It's just been a continually mind-boggling experience," said Mr. Brown, 41, whose offer firstwas publicized on radio Thursday. "The money doesn't bother me one bit. I've thought more about the potential good that comes from this and the naysayers who will take potshots at it." As a criminal lawyer who specializes in defending well-heeled, and sometimes well-armed, drug suspects, Mr. Brown said he could afford to buy the guns.
He offered to pay the first 25 people who showed up at his office $100 for each gun they brought in and $50 apiece for all other guns.
The buying was set for noon Saturday, but by 9:30 a.m. the lobby of the Court Square Building at 200 E. Lexington St. was packed with people -- all armed and ready to make a deal. Mr. Brown rushed downtown to begin doing business.
Mr. Brown, who lives in Baltimore and is a 1970 Poly graduate, said the idea to take guns off the street came to him in an "epiphany" just before Thanksgiving.
"I get a lot of inspiration from my faith in the Lord," he said. "He put it in my spirit one morning to do this."
Mr. Ringgold said the buyback offer attracted some "significant" guns, not just the worn-out weapons often redeemed in such programs.
The first firearm brought to Mr. Brown's 12th-floor office was a sawed-off shotgun.
"It was very ominous," the lawyer said. "Now I know why those things are illegal. I can't imagine any legitimate purpose for that thing."
"We got quality guns -- German Lugers, .45s, .38s, a lot of semiautomatics, not much junk," he said. "One guy had 10 -- the biggest, most pretty guns. This guy was kind of a hustler, and if any of these guns were going to find their way to the street, these 10 would have."
Mr. Brown hired three off-duty city police officers to provide security, and uniformed officers were on hand to receive the weapons.
Mr. Ringgold said city police can't afford to buy guns from citizens, but that the department encourages corporations, churches and individuals to do so.
Mr. Brown is considering another gun buyback in about a year.
"Give me a year to get some money together, and I'll definitely pull some weapons in," he said.
"There's so much death and destruction in my community," said Mr. Brown, who is black. "I get a great sense of joy knowing 182 handguns are off the street. One of them might have been used to kill somebody, and now that person might not die."
"Whatever the consequences, this is God's work that was done and I'm OK with that," he said.