Campfield claimed Memphis can’t destroy guns from buyback program

politifact.com ^ | 15 September, 2012 | NA

[marktwain]

Colorful State Sen. Stacey Campfield seems to court controversy, particularly in his blog, Camp4u.

So it was no real surprise when he took a reproachful tone in blog posts on Sept. 11 about the "gas for guns" program announced the day before by the City of Memphis and the Memphis Police Department. The city held a press conference on Sept. 10 to announce that on Sept. 15, it would conduct an event in which it would give people a $50 Mapco gas card plus two tickets to a Memphis Grizzlies basketball game for turning in a gun. The idea was to get guns off the streets, and 497 guns were exchanged for the cards and tickets at the event. The city said most of the guns would be "destroyed."

"I don’t think they can do that," Campfield wrote in his first blog post on the gas for guns program, adding that "…the point of this post is that the city is saying they intend on destroying the guns they buy. I may be wrong but didn’t we change the law to say they have to resell the guns now?"

The senator cited the Tennessee legislature passing a bill in 2010 regarding what local law enforcement can do with guns but acknowledged he might be wrong with exactly whether it applied to gun "buyback" programs similar to the Memphis initiative.

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Ultimately, that may be a question for the courts if anyone challenges the legality of the program, but our dictionary says "confiscate" means "appropriated by the government; forfeited; deprived of property by confiscation," and "to seize as forfeited to the public treasury; to seize by authority."

[marktwain]

Looks like legislators left a "loophole" in the law. They will have to add that it is illegal for public agencies to destroy or aid in the destruction of valuable legal property.

They may do it next session.

[marktwain]

Maybe the new law should be called the anti-government waste and potlatch law.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

He may be approaching it from the wrong direction.

Are there any applicable laws as to how police departments can dispose of *surplus* equipment?

It is pretty common for government organizations to have strict limits on how they dispose of such equipment, as it would be very easy, once some equipment, say a desk or chairs, are declared surplus, that it could just be thrown away, the employees would walk out the door with it for personal use or resale.

In this case, the Memphis PD is essentially saying that it is going to destroy perhaps hundreds of dollars of government property, instead of surplussing it off through normal channels. In most cases, that is a big no-no.