Colorado Springs Gun Auction: Cash-Strapped City Selling Confiscated Guns Back To Citizens

The Colorado Springs Gazette:

Gun displays are a fixture of police news conferences everywhere, allowing cops to pose for television cameras and tout weapons they've taken off the streets and marked for destruction.

On Saturday in Colorado Springs, police carefully laid out 81 confiscated guns in a conference room. This time, cameras were prohibited, and the only people permitted inside were potential buyers.

Read the whole story: The Colorado Springs Gazette

Comments

[fadedsun]

10:29 PM on 11/21/2009

Destructiv­e devices, AKA grenades and "bazookas" (very, very rare) are already legal as per the 1934 NFA act. They have been legal forever...­.as are Machine guns (real ones).

I'd like that sig that is hanging on the wall 2 from top on the left.

[confidance government]

01:55 AM on 10/06/2009

Nice, i was looking for a .45.

[WearingSunglasses]

09:03 AM on 10/05/2009

guns don't kill people, people kill people

people make the guns that kill people

people make the people that kill people

so, what, nobody killed anybody before the inventions of guns? in Haiti the preferred weapon is machetes, in the war between the hutus and tutsis, millions were killed with machetes - hate, jealousy, poverty, greed - emotions kill people, not guns - outlaw negative emotions and noone will kill anyone

[billjones224]

03:39 AM on 10/05/2009

understand­ing that an inanimate object isn't the problem, this is a great program!! It takes the inanimate object that was owned by bad people and turns it around so good law abiding citizens can own them.

[patsurfs]

12:33 AM on 10/05/2009

In the words of the great intellectu­al god Cartman, "super-swe­et!"

[unclelew]

10:56 PM on 10/04/2009

Even 30,000 gun deaths a years won't keep the boys and girls from their deadly toys

[OdinsEye]

11:06 PM on 10/04/2009

Nor will 40,000 to 50,000 keep them from another, and people are far more likely to die with this other one.

[unclelew]

11:08 PM on 10/04/2009

Huh?

[InYourWorld]

12:49 PM on 10/05/2009

Most guns deaths are suicides in out country. We also ban razors, rope, hot water, aspirin, enclosed garages, hoses, etc.....

Most people that are anti gun have no grasp of the laws surroundin­g guns, nor do they even understand ANY gun terminolog­y. They see a gun and think Rambo!

[Nicon]

06:48 PM on 10/04/2009

This is a little to Catch and release for my taste.

There are a million ways to make a buck, do we really want our cops selling us back the guns they took from us?

[OdinsEye]

07:01 PM on 10/04/2009

The firearms are going to be taken regardless­. Why spend the money to melt them down or chop them up when they can be sold?

[patsurfs]

12:39 AM on 10/05/2009

Yes, this is much ado about nothing, criminals will get guns on the black market not through legal channels such as this.

[3dtrix]

05:30 PM on 10/04/2009

What a great idea! - But why not go for the truly big bucks and sell all the confiscate­d drugs back to the public? Or have they already done that off the books - what was left over from their own use, I mean...

[OdinsEye]

05:55 PM on 10/04/2009

I already addressed that

[DrJohnS]

05:19 PM on 10/04/2009

Guns - no problem. But I would love to see a high (or very high, or extremely high, or even unbearably high) tax on bullets.

[JohnRafail]

05:30 PM on 10/04/2009

Why is that?

[OdinsEye]

05:56 PM on 10/04/2009

Make ammo prohibitiv­ely expensive is legally the same thing as banning firearms.

BTW, many people make their own "bullets".

[medic628]

03:59 PM on 10/04/2009

What dumb idea! This is right up there with guns being allowed in national parks

[OdinsEye]

04:08 PM on 10/04/2009

How is it dumb?

[medic628]

04:13 PM on 10/04/2009

Why put these gun back on the street. Even in gun happy red state CO, it still is a dumb idea. Can you come up with a justificat­ion.

[patsurfs]

04:46 PM on 10/04/2009

It may be financiall­y logical, but it could set a dangerous precedent of government confiscati­ng arms for the purpose of profit.

In this way, it may also interrupt the marketplac­e for guns and affect gun resellers in the area. People may hold out from buying guns from retailers to get them at police auctions.

[OdinsEye]

04:49 PM on 10/04/2009

"it could set a dangerous precedent of government confiscati­ng arms for the purpose of profit"

No more so than any other property they confiscate­.

"it may also interrupt the marketplac­e for guns and affect gun resellers in the area. People may hold out from buying guns from retailers to get them at police auctions"

Nope. Again, the firearms are sold in an auction to the federally licensed dealers AKA "retailers­".

[wadenelson1]

01:58 PM on 10/04/2009

Why not do the same thing with seized drugs?

[OdinsEye]

02:02 PM on 10/04/2009

The seized drugs are illegal in and of itself as well as being of dubious and hard to verify quality.

[OdinsEye]

02:13 PM on 10/04/2009

However, they do the same thing with other seized items like vehicles, houses, appliances­, and other goods.


BTW, the city and county where I live and work has auctioned seized firearms for many years now.

[WCVarones]

01:47 PM on 10/04/2009

That is awesome. I gotta move to Colorado.

[OdinsEye]

01:42 PM on 10/04/2009

Colorado Springs is not the first city to do this.

The county Colorado Springs is in has done this for years.

The sale was to federally licensed dealers (FFLs) .

The AK is a semi-auto.

Good on them.

[patsurfs]

08:22 PM on 10/04/2009

I would like to fire a kalishnako­v one day

[unclelew]

11:11 PM on 10/04/2009

Just hang in there. I'm sure the NRA will try to make bazookas and grenade launchers legal.