West Virginia Delegate Chris Anders Crashed a Church Gun Buyback Event and What He Did Next Has 3 Million People Cheering

Gun grabbers in Shepherdstown were cutting up people's firearms for grocery store gift cards.

Anders showed up with 40 volunteers and a stack of cash and set up right next to them.

The church called the police – and that is when things got very interesting for the gun grabbers.

West Virginia Gun Rights Activists Counter Church Buyback With Private Cash Offers

Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church ran its buyback on May 2 at a local fire station – destroying surrendered firearms on-site in exchange for gift cards worth $50 for handguns, $100 for rifles and shotguns, and $200 for certain semi-automatic rifles.

West Virginia Freedom Caucus Chairman S. Chris Anders, a state delegate representing the 97th District, had other plans.

Anders teamed up with Dave, the owner of DS Gunworks in Martinsburg, and rallied more than 40 local volunteers to set up right beside the church operation and offer private cash purchases to anyone thinking about handing their firearm over to be shredded.

The results were immediate.

Among the guns his group pulled back from the cutting torch: a Colt Officers' Target – a collector's handgun worth several hundred dollars on the open market that had been moments away from a $50 gift card – and a classic Remington Nylon 77 rifle that collectors actively seek.

Several of the firearms recovered were described as new-in-box.

"While anti-gun activists were trading property for gift cards and cutting up firearms on site, we stood right beside them and offered something better… freedom and fair value," Anders said.

"These were not broken or unusable firearms," he added. "These were pieces of history and new, functioning firearms. Destroying them does nothing to stop crime. It only disarms the law-abiding and erases history."

Second Amendment Supporters Outbid the Buyback and Police Declared It Perfectly Legal

Someone in the church group was unhappy enough with the competition to call law enforcement.

Officers reviewed the situation and left the Second Amendment supporters alone.

Everything Anders and his volunteers were doing was completely lawful under West Virginia law.

"That is exactly how this should work," Anders said. "Citizens exercising their rights peacefully, lawfully, and without interference."

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Anders' wife Laura was on the ground alongside the other volunteers, helping with outreach and purchases throughout the two-hour event.

When Anders posted about it on Facebook, 3.3 million people watched. Tens of thousands responded positively. At least one person sent a death threat – which tells you everything you need to know about how the other side took the loss.

This tactic is rare enough that every time it happens, the internet catches fire. Gun buyers turned out in Seattle over a decade ago when people lined up under Interstate 5 to surrender firearms, with private buyers offering better prices on the street before anyone could hand over their property. Every time it works, the gun grabbers call the police. The police keep saying it's legal.

"In West Virginia, we stand with the 2nd Amendment, and gun grabbers can take their antics elsewhere," Anders said.

Gun Buyback Programs Do Not Reduce Crime and Gun Grabbers Know It

Here is what buyback organizers never explain: the people who commit gun crimes do not go to church buyback events.

Criminals do not surrender their tools for a Walmart gift card. Law enforcement and researchers have understood this for thirty years – the guns turned in at buybacks are overwhelmingly low-risk firearms from households that were never generating violence in the first place. The person handing over grandfather's .22 at a fire station is not the threat anyone's grandkids need to worry about.

What buybacks actually accomplish is something far more ideological than practical.

They normalize the idea that your privately owned firearm is a public health problem. They train law-abiding Americans to feel guilty about guns they inherited, bought legally, and have never fired at anything but paper targets. The Left's real goal is not gun safety – it is a culture where civilian firearm ownership is something to be surrendered in exchange for social approval and a grocery store gift card.

Anders understood exactly what was at stake and walked right up next to it with cash.

"They want fewer citizens owning firearms," he said. "We want more firearms in the hands of law-abiding citizens – more liberty, and more respect for the Constitution."

He did not just talk about the Second Amendment on a Saturday morning in Shepherdstown.

"On Saturday, we did not just talk about the Second Amendment, we defended it, one firearm at a time."

Sources:

• Newsroom, "Chairman of the WV Freedom Caucus offers to buy guns at Shepherdstown gun buyback event organized by local church," The Real WV, May 7, 2026.
• Dave Workman, "Gun Owners, Activists Counter WV 'Buyback' by Shepherdstown Church," TheGunMag – Second Amendment Foundation, May 4, 2026.
• Staff, "Armed With Cash, Group Counters Gun Buyback in Shepherdstown," Lootpress, May 4, 2026.
• NRA-ILA, "Texas: House Passes Legislation Prohibiting Gun Buybacks," NRA-ILA, May 14, 2025.