Should seized firearms be melted down?

[spin]

Seized guns should be sold, not scrapped
By Alan Gottlieb and Dave Workman • August 2, 2010

Facing a budget crisis, why would anyone burn money?

That's a question worth asking the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which recently destroyed 8,300 firearms allegedly confiscated from criminals; guns that could and should have been sold to licensed firearms dealers, or utilized by the agency as a means of raising money or saving it.

***snip***

According to the Los Angeles Times, which covered the event as though it were some sort of gala, Sheriff's Deputy Bill Brauberger thought the wasteful destruction was "a celebration" for the agency. It is nothing to celebrate when a valuable resource is destroyed in the name of political correctness.

Like it or not, firearms are a valuable commodity for which law-abiding citizens will pay good money; dollars that could help support the agency that willingly sent these guns to a furnace. Depending upon the type and condition of these firearms, 8,300 guns could fetch a princely sum that could help pay for department programs, anything from gasoline for patrol cars to training or additional equipment.

Yet for 17 years, these confiscated guns have been transported to the Tamco Steel Mill at Rancho Cucamonga and destroyed. Just how many millions of dollars worth of firearms have gone up in smoke to satisfy the anti-gun fanaticism that created this program?

***snip***

The department could have sold these guns at auction to federally-licensed firearms dealers, who could then legally re-sell them to law-abiding citizens after the mandatory background checks. Where is the harm in selling a $500 or $1,000 firearm to an honest citizen who would never use that gun in a crime? That commerce could provide jobs in the private sector, while the firearms might satisfy the recreational, sporting and personal protection needs of the buyers.

***snip***

But, of course, political correctness comes first, doesn't it? It is far better to mollify gun prohibitionists than make financial ends meet and keep criminals locked up, isn't it? Shouldn't we be more interested in flashy news stories than fiscal common sense?

Steel from these melted guns is converted into rebar for use in highway projects in California, Nevada and Arizona, according to the newspaper. Tamco reportedly donates its furnace, manpower and equipment for this purpose. Has anyone calculated the value difference between selling firearms or pressing them into service, and melting them down to reinforce highways? As one Times reader observed in the "feedback" section, a rifle pictured in the hands of Sheriff Lee Baca that ran alongside the story "might bring $700 at auction, but he will melt it down for .01 cent worth of rebar.

Read more: http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20100802/OPINION/8020304/1049#ixzz0vTO6Md31

[slackmaster]

1. With counties hurting for money, this should be a no-brainer

:crazy:

[proteus_lives]

6. +1

[Deep13]

2. Only if their scrap value exceeds their resale value.

Otherwise, sell to the highest bidder while complying with all applicable firearm laws.

[zipplewrath]

3. Who sold them initially?

"The department could have sold these guns at auction to federally-licensed firearms dealers, who could then legally re-sell them to law-abiding citizens after the mandatory background checks. Where is the harm in selling a $500 or $1,000 firearm to an honest citizen who would never use that gun in a crime? That commerce could provide jobs in the private sector, while the firearms might satisfy the recreational, sporting and personal protection needs of the buyers."

Isn't that what happened to them to begin with? They got sold to licensed dealers who sold them to citizens after background checks?

Heck, just think of it as a stimulus program for the gun industry. "Cash for plunkers". They remove them from the market, someone gets a job making a new one to put back onto the market.

[jeepnstein]

4. Look at if from the Sheriff's point of view.

If he sells the surplus, and in the very highly unlikely event one of those guns are used against one of his officers in a crime he'll be roasted out of office. Our local Sheriff is very RKBA but he won't sell surplus because he doesn't want his department listed as the seller of this or that firearm. I tend to agree with him. He did allow officers to buy surplus Sig Sauers a couple of years back. Most of them were sold to reserve officers who badly needed upgrades.

[damntexdem]

5. Yes, destroy them.

It is utter foolishness to sell them off to have them reenter the cycle that led to their confiscation.

[Statistical]

7. As opposed to new firearms entering circulation?

What is the difference is a used firearm or new firearm ends up being used for crime?

Simple economics. There is a demand for firearms. If that demand isn't met by used firearms it will be met by new firearms.

The idea that destroying 3,800 firearms reduces the supply in circulation is silly. If the demand exists then firearm manufacturers will simply make 3,800 more.

The firearm supply in this country has been growing pretty much continuously for last 70 years (likely more than that but we don't have records). Melting down 3,800 simply deprives the city/state of revenue nothing more.

[one-eyed fat man]

8. OK answer me this

Back some years ago an idiot stole a gun from a relative, walked into a bank in downtown Toronto and robbed it. He was a spaced out druggie and quickly apprehended. Nothing really particularly noteworthy about the crime, no one was hurt and he only got away with a few hundred bucks and a dye bomb. No need to call in CSI to arrest the purple idiot trying to buy dope from an undercover cop with purple money.

What made the whole episode interesting was the stolen .45 caliber pistol. That particular M1911 was produced at the original Ross rifle factory in Quebec during the closing days of WW1 by North American Arms. They had just gotten production started when the war ended and only a 100 of them were made. The price, if you can find one, $25,500!

So, did the gun get returned to its registered owner? Nope, the RCMP dutifully destroyed it as a "crime gun."

Positively medieval, if you ask me. Except in the hearts of the most doctrinaire and strident gun control advocates the concept of deodands is quaintly archaic.

deodand

If your car gets stolen by your drunk nephew and he hits someone with it you car should go to the "crusher" as a crime car?

[spin]

11. Good point about crushing a "crime car" ...

the locals confiscate drug owners cars and display them during parades.

[oneshooter]

9. Even the occasional collectors piece?

Some of the weapons recovered have a very high value, $1000 or more. Does it make financial sense to destroy these, rather than benefit from the sale to collectors?

$.50 vs $1000+

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[friendly_iconoclast]

17. You do realize you're endorsing a de facto stimulus program for gunmakers...

For that matter, what makes you think the resold guns would be used for ill? Are they somehow contaminated with bad gun karma?


If LA County were to sell these guns via licensed dealers, the original manufacturers would get not a cent of the sale price.

As it is now, the people who *would* have bought them will simply buy new or another used gun.

I'm sure Glock, Smith & Wesson, Colt, et al appreciate your support...

[cleanhippie]

26. So you are saying that LEGALLY selling them to LEGAL owners leads to guns being used criminally?

Can you support that statement with any facts or evidence?

[oneshooter]

27. I don't believe that DT believes that ANY firearm is "legal". n/t

[cleanhippie]

28. Ahh, I see.

[Hoopla Phil]

10. Nope. Sell at auction if they cannot be returned to the proper owner.

Treat them the same as any other private property.

[MineralMan]

12. Oh, heck no! They should be handed out at HS Graduations.

Yeah...that's the ticket...

[one-eyed fat man]

13. They used to do that.................

[MineralMan]

14. Yabbut you had to get a physical before you got your weapon.

I remember that. Yes, I do.

[jeepnstein]

15. 6'3" and 155 Lbs?

I hope they fed you well with that meal ticket.:)

[spin]

19. Often to the poorer people ...

the rich kids went to college.

[one-eyed fat man]

20. Some ambivalence

I was a regular. Back before 1970 when we still had service numbers instead of using the SSAN the number had a prefix RA for Regular Army and US for Army of the United States aka a 'draftee'. That distinction was also noted on our military ID cards. It was important only from the legal standpoint as the draft was a calling up of individual members of the "unorganized militia" as defined under Titles 10 and 32 of the US Code.

Many of those the draft didn't get out of high school that went to college were enrolled in ROTC and did a hitch as Reserve Officers. During the era of the draft it was one thing most men of a certain age could virtually count on as a shared experience, rich poor, black, white etc. A mention of "Agony, Misery and Heartbreak" would invariably get, "When were you at Fort Knox?" The same might hold for Tank Hill and Fort Jackson, Custer Hill and Fort Riley, Sand Hill and Fort Benning. Even many of the rich and the famous felt it was their duty to pull their weight.



And the barracks pretty much looked the same whether they were at Harmony Church on Fort Hood or any of a dozen other posts.

[oneshooter]

21. That looks like the barracks at Parris Island!!!

They date from WW1 and have been in continues use since. Two words that brought misery "Fire Watch".

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[spin]

23. We were told our old barracks at Lackland AFB and Keesler AFB ...

would burn down in three minutes flat if they caught fire. There was so much wax on the floors that I believe it.

[spin]

22. I had an AF before my service number ...

and those barracks look very familiar.

While some that did go to college enrolled in ROTC many didn't.

Consequently, there was some opposition to the draft even before the major U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War began. The large cohort of Baby Boomers who became eligible for military service during the Vietnam War also meant a steep increase in the number of exemptions and deferments, especially for college and graduate students. Furthermore, college graduates who volunteered for military service and even (to a lesser degree) those who were drafted had a much better chance of securing a preferential posting compared to less-educated draftees. This was a source of considerable resentment among poor and working class young men, who could not afford a college education.

As U.S. troop strength in Vietnam increased, more young men were drafted for service there, and many of those still at home sought means of avoiding the draft. For those seeking a relatively safer alternative to the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, or the Air Force, the Coast Guard was an option (provided one could meet the more stringent enlistment standards). Since only a handful of National Guard and Reserve units were sent to Vietnam, enlistment in the Guard or the Reserves became a favored means of draft avoidance. Vocations to the ministry and the rabbinate soared, because divinity students were exempt from the draft. Doctors and draft board members found themselves being pressured by relatives or family friends to exempt potential draftees.

***snip***

According to the Veteran's Administration, 9.2 million men served in the military between 1964 and 1975. Nearly 3.5 million men served in the Vietnam theater of operations. From a pool of approximately 27 million, the draft raised 2,215,000 men for military service during the Vietnam era. It has also been credited with "encouraging" many of the 8.7 million "volunteers" to join rather than risk being drafted.

Of the nearly 16 million men not engaged in active military service, 96% were exempted (typically because of jobs including other military service), deferred (usually for educational reasons), or disqualified (usually for physical and mental deficiencies but also for criminal records to include draft violations).<4> Draft offenders in the last category numbered nearly 500,000 but less than 10,000 were convicted or imprisoned for draft violations.<8> Finally, as many as 100,000 draft eligible males fled the country.<31><32>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_States#Vietnam_War

WASHINGTON, April 30 — It was 1959 when Dick Cheney, then a student at Yale University, turned 18 and became eligible for the draft.

Eventually, like 16 million other young men of that era, Mr. Cheney sought deferments. By the time he turned 26 in January 1967 and was no longer eligible for the draft, he had asked for and received five deferments, four because he was a student and one for being a new father.

***snip***

He said he "never served" because of deferments to finish a college career that lasted six years rather than four, which he attributed to subpar academic performance and the fact that he had to work to pay for his education.

He added that he "would have obviously been happy to serve had I been called."

Away from the hearing room, he told the Washington Post that he had sought his deferments because "I had other priorities in the 60's than military service."

"I don't regret the decisions I made," he added. "I complied fully with all the requirements of the statutes, registered with the draft when I turned 18. Had I been drafted, I would have been happy to serve."

But others contend that Mr. Cheney appeared to go to some length to avoid the draft.

"Five deferments seems incredible to me," said David Curry, a professor at the University of Missouri in St. Louis who has written extensively about the draft, including a 1985 book, "Sunshine Patriots: Punishment and the Vietnam Offender."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/01/politics/campaign/01CHEN.html

I avoided the draft by joining the Air Force. I have a lot of fond memories of my time in the service. Those were good years, especially since I never left the states. I was an electronics instructor at Keesler AFB and a fight line technician on the EC-121H radar picket aircraft and the EC-121R reconnaissance aircraft at Otis AFB in Massachusetts.


ER-121H


Ec-121R

[cowman]

25. I enlisted the U.S. Navy

in 68 to avoid the draft and then joined the Seabees as an Equipment Operator and ended up in Vietnam in 69 anyways at the vacation spot of Dong Ha, Hell of a way to avoid the draft.
On a lighter note, 1 1/2 hrs away from retirement. Hallelujah.

[SteveM]

18. Elephant's fart & a saloon? One's a barroom, the other's a bar-ROOM!

[Katya Mullethov]

16. Why not ?

WE'RE MADE OUTTA MUN-NEEEEE !!!!!!

[onehandle]

24. Obama needs rebar for rebuilding America. nt

[slackmaster]

29. It's cheaper to buy rebar from normal commercial sources

Get a clue.

[onehandle]

30. One vote against Obama and America.

Puppy sees you.

[slackmaster]

31. Your post does not follow logically from what I wrote

But that doesn't surprise me.

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[spin]

32. That makes as much sense as this picture ...