Police are working to determine if any of the firearms were stolen.
A line snakes around the lobby of the Springfield Police Department, 130 Pearl St., during a gun buyback program Saturday that drew hundreds and collected more than 330 guns.
SPRINGFIELD — Three of the 333 firearms handed over during a seven-hour buyback conducted by Springfield police on Saturday were deemed by officers to be assault weapons.
Officer Richard Rodrigues said one of the weapons was a Chinese model, another resembled an AR-15 and the third was a Hi-Tec.
Each one of those weapons netted $100 worth of VISA gift cards for those who turned them in. Information on the specific models was not immediately available.
The AR-15 has figured prominently in the national debate over firearms in wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting last December in Newtown, Conn. The shooter used such a semiautomatic weapon to take 26 lives at the school, investigators have said.
Closer to home, an Olympic Arms AR-15 was wielded by a suspect during an April 13, 2012 shootout in Chicopee that left a state trooper and bystander wounded and the shooter dead by his own hand.
Of the firearms turned in Saturday, 112 were shotguns, 101 were handguns, 117 were rifles and three were black powder guns, Rodrigues said.
Two additional firearms, deemed by police firearm experts as potentially rare, will be handed over to the museum at the Springfield Armory National Historic Site for further evaluation. One is a so-called pepperbox handgun and the other is a musket, Rodrigues said.
Police, meanwhile, are continuing to determine whether any of the firearms handed in during the buyback were stolen, Sgt. John M. Delaney said. If so, officers will attempt to contact their rightful owners to give them the opportunity to reclaim them.
All of the firearms, with the exception of those that may be returned to their owners and potentially the two to be further examined by the museum, will be destroyed, Delaney, aide to Commissioner Fitchet said.
Those who turned in firearms, other than those deemed to be assault weapons, received $50 VISA gift cards.
The buyback, initially funded at $7,500, was paid for by private donors, including Convenient Cards at Monarch Place and trauma and pediatric surgeons at Baystate Medical Center.
Organizers ran out of the $7,500 worth of $50 gift cards within the first two hours and those coming later received vouchers redeemable for gift cards at Convenient Cards, which made up the difference.
Delaney said nearly 60 people redeemed their gift cards at Convenient Cards on Monday.