Mar. 29—A gun buyback program in Farmington run by a gun violence prevention group last year did not violate laws requiring background checks on gun sales, the state Department of Justice opined recently.

In a letter issued earlier this month to Rick Tedrow, district attorney for San Juan County, Chief Deputy Attorney General James Grayson wrote such events, if done with the participation of law enforcement, do not require federal background checks because the law “does not apply to the transfer of a firearm as a gift or donation.”

Gun buyback events, he wrote, are “designed to function as a community safety tool during which firearms are surrendered for their destruction in order to remove the firearms from the community.” It would be “prudent to conduct such events only in association with law enforcement,” Grayson wrote.

However, even if police don’t participate, the letter says if a nonprofit accepts a surrendered firearm, destroys it and then provides a gift card after the fact, there is an assumption the nonprofit did not promise anything of value to the person surrendering the firearm “before the exchange occurs.”

In that case, again, there is no need for a background check, the letter says.

The San Juan County Sheriff’s Office in December began looking into whether New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence violated state law on firearms transactions with a gun buyback program. Some people raised concerns after the Santa Fe-based group posted on social media it had gone door to door in Farmington to dismantle “unwanted firearms” after the city government canceled a planned buyback event.

Miranda Viscoli, co-president of New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, said in a brief interview the letter means “buybacks are 100% OK, which is great.”

She told The New Mexican late last year the majority of Farmington residents who took part “did not even want a gift card. The ones that did received a gift card after all guns were completely dismantled and destroyed.”

But San Juan County Sheriff Shane Ferrari posted a letter on his agency’s website saying his office questions whether the weapons were properly destroyed.

Viscoli has said in the past the guns were properly destroyed and turned into gardening tools and instruments.

Ferrari also said his office unsuccessfully tried to find out which Farmington residents took part in the buyback. He said “no stolen firearm check was conducted on the firearms” and his agency no longer knows what happened to them.

As such, he wrote, New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence “may have inadvertently violated” the background check law.

Rep. Stefani Lord, R-Sandia Park, said the whole affair raises more questions than answers for her.

She said Viscoli and any members of her group who took part in the door-to-door buybacks “should have witnesses and certification to make sure” they are doing it correctly — including the destruction of firearms.

“I don’t like the vagueness of this,” Lord said. “There should be an investigation and more questions and possibly … charges.”