Disarming Appearance : Raiders Lend Hand in Tickets-for-Guns Exchange

Grocery carts full of rifles and handguns and sawed-off shotguns sat nearby as defensive tackle Chester McGlockton handed out Raider tickets and softly thanked each person.

“Bless you,” he said as gang members, proud fathers and septuagenarians turned over everything from Swedish army rifles to Nazi-era handguns to tiny pistols that fit comfortably in the purses of society women.

McGlockton led several Raider teammates in promoting a tickets-for-guns exchange intended to get firearms off Oakland’s streets. In four hours, police collected 152 weapons on a soggy Saturday afternoon.

In exchange for each gun, McGlockton and his teammates offered a handshake, a few words of thanks and two tickets to today’s season finale against Seattle.

The gun toters at rain-swept Oakland Coliseum ranged from a couple in their 70s, relieved to get rid of three hunting rifles that had been rusting in the garage, to sullen teenagers who seemed to bristle at the sight of so many policemen--all of whom donated their time.

“This is a way to begin to curb some of the violence on the streets,” said McGlockton, who led his teammates in donating money to pay for the tickets. “God blessed me to be a professional football player, and this is what he put me here for. This is one way of helping people.”

Many of those who turned in guns were drawn by the offer of tickets or the chance to meet McGlockton and teammates such as Tim Brown and Pat Swilling. Others simply wanted to rid their homes of at least some of their guns.

“I’m about to have a kid. My other guns are handguns and they’re all locked up, but I couldn’t lock up this one,” said 22-year-old Paul Bonifacio of Tracy, who turned in a 12-gauge shotgun.

Many of the people who turned in guns wore silver and black Raider jackets.

One brave soul wore a 49er cap.

From 1990 to 1995, 916 people were shot to death in Alameda County. In the year ending Sept. 1, 1996, Oakland’s Highland Hospital treated 392 people for gunshot wounds, an average of more than one a day.