Here this story is again: police in Pennsylvania, according to the AP, are reselling their confiscated firearms back to gun dealers. It’s against any common sense– these guns should be destroyed, period. But it’s still happening.
A suburban police department resold hundreds of confiscated and surrendered firearms to gun shops, including one dealer now in prison for selling weapons to felons, a newspaper reported Sunday.
Another of the shops lost its license last summer after authorities linked guns sold there to 19 homicides, including the killing of a Philadelphia police officer, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Upper Darby police stopped the resale practice after federal agents raided a shop in 2005 and traced an illegal sawed-off shotgun back to the department.
“This involves hundreds of guns,” retired police detective Ray Britt said. “Lots of people knew it was happening, and some officers tried to stop it. But it went on for years.”
Anyone on the street could tell you this is a bad idea. The goal of police officers is to get illegal firearms back off of the streets, and reselling them to gun dealers, especially gun dealers who are known to sell to criminals, is compounding the problem, not helping the solution. But a lot of police departments say they need the money, citing the resold firearms as a bonus on their budget.
Considering the damage these firearms do, however, no amount of money is worth this. The Philadelphia Inquirer has posted an editorial attacking the police department for sabotaging their own efforts just to make a buck, and landing on a real solution that everyone should agree on: destroying the firearms.
What were the police thinking?
They obviously weren’t thinking about public safety. That mission wasn’t served by selling guns to dealers such as Lou’s Loans in Upper Darby and Mac’s Gun Shop in Clifton Heights.
Firearms used in at least 19 Philadelphia homicides came from Lou’s Loans. Between 1995 and 1997, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) traced 111 guns that had been used in Philadelphia crimes to Lou’s. The shop was so indiscriminate as to whom it sold guns that the ATF pulled its firearms dealer’s license last July.
Upper Darby police also weren’t thinking about their own safety. The guns the police put back into circulation could have ended up with criminals who pointed the barrel straight back at them.
And they weren’t thinking about the wise law-enforcement practice of destroying seized firearms.
Pennsylvania law allows police departments to sell confiscated guns. But Montgomery County police destroy the firearms they seize. So do authorities in New Jersey’s Camden County. That’s smart thinking.
The thing is, even the gun industry should agree with that sentiment. Destroying confiscated firearms means every gun sold in a dealership is a new gun. And that means every sale goes directly back to the gun industry. Used guns earn profit at the gun dealers only. And since the gun lobby works for the gun industry, even the NRA should be asking police to do the right thing here: destroy the firearms confiscated by cops.
When cops resell these guns to gun dealers who then sell them to criminals, they’re trading our safety and our security for profits. And that makes them as guilty as the gun industry themselves.
