PLEASANTVILLE – Area officials are gearing up for what they feel will be another successful gun buyback program to be held at two Atlantic County locations next week.

“Absolutely, this will be successful,” said Pleasantville Mayor Jesse Tweedle. “It will be more successful than last time.”

Local officials collected 511 weapons during the last guy buyback held at the police station, he said.

This time, however, the buyback locations have been moved to local churches.

As part of a statewide effort to reduce gun violence by taking firearms out of circulation, the Atlantic County Gun Amnesty Program will conduct gun buybacks Friday and Saturday, March 22 and 23 at churches here and in Atlantic City.

Guns can be turned in 8 a.m.-8 p.m. both days at Faith Baptist Church, 829 Tilton Road, Pleasantville, and the Second Baptist Church, 110 Rev. Dr. Isaac S. Coles Plaza, Atlantic City.

Residents can turn in as many as three firearms of any type – no questions asked – and receive up to $250 per weapon, depending on the type of gun and its condition. No identification is needed to turn in a gun.

Police officers will be stationed at the two churches to collect and secure the guns.

State Attorney General Jeffrey S. Chiesa announced the buyback plans last week at a press conference held in Trenton.

The Attorney General’s Office is providing the money to pay for the guns, Tweedle said. To receive the money, the guy buyback had to be held on a Friday and Saturday and at a church.

A similar program held Feb. 15-16 at churches in Asbury Park and Keansburg, Monmouth County, netted 1,500 weapons, according to the Associated Press. Since December, the state has collected more than 7,000 weapons.

Chiesa said that is 7,000 firearms that will never kill or maim “a police officer, an innocent bystander, a curious child or anyone else.”

He noted that in the three prior state-sponsored buybacks, more than a thousand of the guns turned in were illegal because they had unlawfully high ammunition capacities, sawed-off barrels or were otherwise modified. He said that a buyback in Essex County netted a number of extraordinarily lethal weapons, including an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle similar to one used in the Newtown, Conn., mass shootings.

“We recognize that these buybacks aren’t a singular, one-stop solution to the gun violence problem,” Chiesa said. “However, they are important because, as we all recognize, there are just too many firearms circulating out there and too many innocent people dying or being critically wounded as a result.”

Criminal forfeiture monies obtained by the Division of Criminal Justice and the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office will fund the gun buybacks.

“I urge the residents of Atlantic County to support this effort to make New Jersey safer by coming out later this month and selling back their firearms,” he said in a news release.

“The people and agencies working together on this buyback initiative have come together for a common goal: to save lives and create safer neighborhoods by getting guns off our streets,” he said “I urge the residents of Atlantic County to support this effort to make New Jersey safer by coming out later this month and selling back their firearms.”

For information call the Attorney General citizen services unit at (609) 984-5828 or see www.nj.gov/guns.

Tweedle continues to take an active roll in the Mayors Against Illegal Guns organization, joining the group in an appearance before Congress in Washington.

“We are trying to find a common-sense proposal,” he said.

The group is proposing a three-step approach to gun control, according to the mayor.

“We want to have background checks on the purchase of every gun,” he said. “We want to ban assault weapons and anything over a 10-round magazine.”

Finally, the group wants to make gun trafficking a federal crime, he said.