Communities across the U.S. are fueling a secondary arms market by giving seized and surrendered guns to disposal services that destroy one part and resell the rest.

Communities across the U.S. are fueling a secondary arms market by giving seized and surrendered guns to disposal services that destroy one part and resell the rest.

When Flint, Mich., announced in September that 68 assault weapons collected in a gun buyback would be incinerated, the city cited its policy of never reselling firearms.

“Gun violence continues to cause enormous grief and trauma,” said Mayor Sheldon Neeley. “I will not allow our city government to profit from our community’s pain by reselling weapons that can be turned against Flint residents.”

But Flint’s guns were not going to be melted down. Instead, they made their way to a private company that has collected millions of dollars taking firearms from police agencies, destroying a single piece of each weapon stamped with the serial number and selling the rest as nearly complete gun kits. Buyers online can easily replace what’s missing and reconstitute the weapon.

Hundreds of towns and cities have turned to a growing industry that offers to destroy guns used in crimes, surrendered in buybacks or replaced by police force upgrades. But these communities are in fact fueling a secondary arms market, where weapons slated for destruction are recycled into civilian hands, often with no background check required, according to interviews and a review of gun disposal contracts, patent records and online listings for firearms parts.

    • vivadanang@lemm.eeEnglish
      22·
      1 year ago

      You cannot buy a lower receiver without going through a background check

      yeah but you can easily buy an 80% arms lower, finish that yourself, and no bg check involved.

      Or you could just get a lower from private sales which aren’t required to bg check.

      Saying it’s impossimole wivvout de lowah is just bullshit and you know it. But cute attempt to be cranky. Like you’re attempting to rage bait for people who don’t know enough about the arms trade.

        • vivadanang@lemm.eeEnglish
          6·
          1 year ago

          The ability to buy or build a gun without a background check via private party is unchanged by the ability to cheaply buy gun accessories from destroyed guns.

          yeah pretty fucked up that we’ll let people buy most of a gun without a check, then the rest without another check. good to find ground we can agree on.

          440 million firearms in the USA. Never seems like enough to some folks. And you know what, I’d be chill with it, if they could fucking secure their weapons.

          But they won’t. Sometime this week, someone, somewhere is gonna get murdered with a firearm some dickhole couldn’t bother to secure, who left it in their car, who didn’t even know it was already stolen because they’re too fucking dumb to do the minimum.