Banksville boilermakers union to offer free training to any who surrender a gun

Pittsburgh Tribune Review ^ | 02-13-2015 | Megan Guza

[RS_Rider]

Raymond Ventrone figured there had to be a better way to get people to surrender guns than offering “a few hundred dollars or a Giant Eagle gift card.”

“I've never thought that was much incentive to turn a gun in for guys who make $2,000 or $3,000 a week selling drugs,” he said. “Let's go a step further and offer them a career.”

Ventrone, business manager of Boilermakers Local 154 in Banksville, convinced his union to partner with Pittsburgh and Allegheny County police departments to establish a “Guns for Opportunity” program that offers anyone who turns in a gun the opportunity for free technical education and a career.

Police will collect and dispose of surrendered guns — no questions asked — and the Boilermakers will enroll participants in welding school.

Ventrone said he wants to provide alternate opportunities to neighborhoods hard hit by violence and crime.

“We're going to go into each neighborhood, ask them to lay down their arms and give them the opportunity to come into our trade,” he said. “But they're going to have to work. They're not just going to give their guns and become a boilermaker the next day.”

[Vaquero]

half the people in the cowboy action clubs I shot with were union and proud.

one guy was upset that I bought skeet for the club, real cheap, at Walmart for the club shoots. I told him to find a union only cowboy club to shoot with or keep quiet about it.

[Buddha54]

Let’s see if I have this straight. A union does something innovative to remove guns from drug dealers, which — if it works — should help reduce crime and possibly move somebody into a productive life.

For that, your response is to ridicule the union for having the guts to do something positive and for perceived flaws that have nothing to do with the program.

So I ask you, what have you done lately to reduce crime in your neighborhood? And, no, owning a gun doesn’t count — lots of us do for our own protection and that of others.

Blindly bashing labor unions usually demonstrates an ignorance of why they exist and the good that they do (although, like any organization or group, they have their warts).

[Falcon4.0]

I choose not to commit a crime with a gun. And that's all that everybody has to do to end gun violence.
There my job is done.

[Chode]

they can steal more money with a union card than they could with a gun anyway