Albany's gun buyback program could soon run out of ammo. City officials and community leaders made a public made a public plea Tuesday for more funding for the program, before it's too late. Our Solomon Syed reports.

  To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Two years ago, the shooting death of 10-year-old Kathina Thomas sent shockwaves through Albany. Amid anguish, Victory Christian Church Pastor Charlie Muller found inspiration.

"Let's get the community guns. Let's just see, the kids we've fed over the years, we've built a bridge with the community and with these kids. Please, just give us up these guns," says Pastor Muller.

Within the first two days, they collected 17 unregistered, illegal handguns. Now two years later, Pastor Muller's no questions asked gun buyback program gets credit for the surrender of about 400 firearms. Yet critics claim many of those guns don't even work.

"I just want to emphasize: These are guns that are operable. They're not junk, they're not rifles, they're not shotguns," Albany County Sheriff James Campbell fired back. "They're handguns."

But the program is running out of ammo. Pastor Muller used portions of $30,000in public funding to give $150 Crossgates Mall gift certificates to anyone who would turn in an illegal gun. Only $7,000 of that money remains, threatening to holster the program beyond this year.

"To remove an illegal handgun that's going to be used in a shooting, that's going to take the life of a young person in an urban center, that to me is money well spent," says Albany County District Attorney David Soares.

And while the program is helping keep guns out of some of Albany's roughest neighborhoods, officials say it's helping keep police from having to use theirs too.

The District Attorney tells us there's been a 50 percent overall reduction in the number of shots fired in Albany since the program began.

"We've only run our program at like 10 percent out of a 100 percent. And we want more of the guns, we want to take this program to another level," says Pastor Muller.

But in order to do that, they'll need to reload on private donations, and additional financial support from the county legislature.