I am wanting to know how other agencies are destroying guns that cannot be sold? We use to have a metal scrap yard that would cut them up for us for free, but that is no longer an option. We also tried to ride on the ATF destruction when they cut up their illegal guns, but they always forget to tell us that they are going. So does anyone have any other options on how to dispose of these broken, illegal, or destruction guns? We could sure use a few options.
Angela Barlow
Evidence Supervisor
Pinal County Sheriff’s Office
When you’re as far away from services as we are, you have to improvise. For us, it depends on which part of the firearm is illegal. If it’s a shotgun barrel that’s too short, we remove the barrel and sell the rest of the gun, sans barrel. Once the barrel is off, the rest of the gun is legal again, and our FFL bidders buy them just as quick as a whole gun. If it’s a defaced or removed serial number, we part out the gun and cut the receiver (the only ATF controlled portion of the gun) into pieces with a chop saw (which came out of Evidence). All the ATF requires when cutting a receiver is that you displace 1/4″ of material in the cut. Once the receiver is cut, the parts and pieces are bagged, labeled according to manufacturer and model, and sold as parts. Again, our FFL bidders buy them just as quick. Other issues making a gun illegal are dealt with case by case, and only a few times have we had to completely destroy a firearm, which we do with the chop saw, cutting through the receiver and cutting the barrel into 2″ pieces.
Good Morning,
We take them to the smelter when we destroy narcotics.
Debbie
Any firearm that I have set aside for destruction is taken with our drug burn for destruction up in Globe, AZ. It’s a pain to hold onto these firearms but in the end it is so much easier when it comes to disposal.
I have heard others utilizing their facility maintenance department’s equipment to destroy/ cut up the firearms.
Hope this helps,
Jason M.
We also use the smelter in the Miami/Globe area.
You may also want to try M.E. Global in Tempe. They are a foundry in Tempe that make metal castings. We used them in 2005 to melt our guns for free. Not sure if they still offer the service.
Good luck.
Roy
we sell the parts and chop up the parts that we can not sell. parts are then welded together and disposed of.
We have done a couple of things. We release all our disposable firearms to Sierra Auction out of Phoenix. They will come and pick them up at our agency. They take a percentage of all guns auctioned. In rare instances, Sierra Auction will not accept the weapon, and it must be destroyed. If the weapon needs to be destroyed we can take it to a local metal fabricator and the shop will cut it up using a torch or metal cutting saw. They charge a minimal amount for that. In the case of a Glock on which the serial number was tampered with, we kept the receiver, and give the rest of the gun to Sierra to auction as parts. We then cut the plastic receiver up with tin snips enough to render it clearly inoperable.