Posted on 12/23/2019 5:09:04 AM PST by marktwain
Vermont is finally selling guns the government has impounded for decades. The legislation to do so came at the price of universal background checks, a ban on standard capacity magazines, and a ban on sales to adults less than 21 years old.
Prior to 2018, Vermont had created a legal and political impasse about stored firearms in state and police custody. The firearms had accumulated over decades. Most of the firearms were not involved in serious crimes.
“Disposing of firearms is one of the most difficult parts of managing our evidence and property rooms,” said Morrison, who also serves as president of the Vermont Association of Chiefs of Police.
Under state law, officials need permission from the commissioner of public safety or the state treasurer in order to destroy or sell guns held by the government. According to Morrison, those officials have refused to give their permission for years, even when she proposed bringing in a private company that can strip guns for parts and then destroy them for free.
With no legal way for cops to get rid of the guns, they pile up.
About 300 guns had accumulated in state custody as well. Before 2018, the state treasurer had been responsible for the disposal of the guns. But neither of those political officials wanted to take responsibility to do so.
It is easy to understand why. Destroy the guns, and they would be accused of destroying valuable property for no good reason. Sell the guns, and the shrill anti-Second Amendment types would accuse them of “putting deadly weapons on the street”. So the firearms accumulated in the thousands.
Vermont has a low crime rate, but high gun ownership.
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
Impound the gunscatvnot cost to the state, then sell the guns at a profit.
Well since Bernie‘s from Vermont and wants government to provide everything for free, there’s the answer. FREE GUNS!
“Vermont has a low crime rate, but high gun ownership.”
Well, since they consider Health Care a ‘right’ when it isn’t in the Constitution, they should consider the ‘right to bear arms’ since it IS in the Constitution.
Free, free, free, free free free free
Send them to the patriots of Virginia!
I remember in the early 1970s, when NYC cleaned out their confiscated handguns. It took three Coast Guard ships to tow the barges out into the Atlantic where they were dumped into the deep.
Had the dumped the guns on the open market they could have depressed the prices of new handguns, and drove the gun companies into bankruptcy, but then it was New York.
People go crazy at police auctions when the guns are sold, often bidding up higher than new prices for junk guns.
Why were the guns impounded in the first place, if most were not directly involved in a crime?
Why can't these guns be returned to their rightful owners?
“...Why were the guns impounded in the first place, if most were not directly involved in a crime?
Why can’t these guns be returned to their rightful owners?” [ZOOKER, post 8]
Some are found by law enforcement officers, abandoned.
Some are tossed from suspect vehicles, when police following them hit the warning lights & siren. Authorities cannot always prove the suspect ditched the gun; if the suspect denies any knowledge of the gun, not much more can be done.
Some guns are found in homes and other structures being searched for other items. If suspects deny all knowledge, again, little can be done.
Similar to a crime scene, where guns not directly used in the crime are found. Suspects typically deny all knowledge of any gun found at the scene or in their vehicle.
Guns sold by a federally licensed dealer to a private citizen are transferred only after the transferee (buyer) furnishes suitable identification and passes the “instant check.” The dealer is required to required to record in a permanently bound logbook the party from whom they acquired the gun and to whom they sold it - and they must keep these logbooks indefinitely. Law enforcement agencies routinely contact dealerships to learn when a specific gun was sold and who bought it; dealers must furnish this information as a condition of retaining their license, and are not permitted to know who wants the information, nor why. The commonest inference is that the gun came into possession of authorities on being recovered from a crime scene.
But the transfer of the gun to the instant-check-cleared buyer from the licensed dealer usually marks the end of the accountability trail. No federal law requires logging or tracking transfer of a gun from one private citizen to another. Neither is there any federal requirement to report theft of a gun (state and local laws may lay on such requirements; also, the absence of laws requiring reporting of sale or theft to authorities doesn’t imply that such behavior is prudent).
An owner may not discover their gun has been stolen until much later; homes are burgled all the time without owners’ immediate knowledge. Some guns are left behind when owners move out (as in a divorce) or simply lost (some bounce out of vehicles in a traffic mishap). Or they are mistakenly thrown out in the trash, only to be recovered by alert scavengers.
A hurricane or a tornado can wipe out many homes; if homeowners are killed or evacuated, knowledge of gun presence and ownership may be lost. Looters can have a field day in natural disasters.
Owners may have no real knowledge of who they sold a gun to - though the practice may seem unwise, being ignorant is not against the law. And second or third owners may know nothing either. Guns are durable and can survive many resellings.
In these situations, authorities have few options.
And that’s not the full tale. After a lawful owner has been determined. that person must be found before the gun can be returned. Sometimes they die first, or simply cannot be found: people do disappear on purpose, often for non-criminal reasons.
Authorities won’t return a gun to any owner without being really, really sure they’ve nailed the identity of that owner. Not every owner is necessarily comfortable with that level of official attention, or they may not be patient with the slow pace of bureaucracy.
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