Austinites outbid Police in gun buyback counter-program [More]In principle, I like it. In practice, I'd want to make sure I'd thought through various potentials. For instance, some of the "official" events provide for traces to return stolen guns to rightful owners.
[Via Mark G]
Yep, stolen property should be returned to their rightful owners.
ReplyDeleteHow do you know if the weapon in question is not connected to something worse then robbery, like a body or two on it?
No fast or easy way to tell.
I am one of the persons involved in making this program happen. We also share your concern about returning stolen firearms to their rightful owners. We will be giving a list of serial numbers to the Austin Police Department, to insure none of the 24 firearms we purchased are stolen. If any are stolen we will immediately turn them over to APD or the rightful owner, whichever way is most legal and efficient. As for a gun being connected to a crime, we had two prospective sellers tell us we didn't want to buy their weapons because they were illegal, so we declined. Most of what we purchased were single shot bolt action or break open shotguns and rifles. Of the handguns purchased most were in calibers of .32ACP and smaller, with .22LR Bryco Jennings pistols representing the most. To clarify no weapons sold to us were weapons I would have purchased from a gun store. We turned away between 1/2 or 2/3 of the weapons offered to us for sale as they were either completely nonfunctional, or would be a danger to anyone trying to fire them. I appreciate your concerns over returning property to their rightful owners and I assure you that I and others from Texans for Accountable Government do share your concerns.
ReplyDeleteLet me preface this with: I don't know about Texas law as I've never lived there.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, according to Pennsylvania law you are required to do all handgun sales/transfers through an FFL, even private sales are required to be routed through an FFL.
I don't know if an FFL has the ability to run the numbers on a weapon they receive in Pawn or sale, but that would make sense to me.
I've also had a couple conversations with officers over the years, and they told me they had the ability to do a trace on a weapon without inputting "ownership" data upon request. I don't know if this has changed in recent years as it's been at least 5 since I've had this conversation.
I also believe that stolen property should be returned to the proper owner as well, but if my (admittedly limited) knowledge of the processes involved in the transfer of firearms is accurate, I think a trace can be done on the weapon without much extra effort by those running the exchange.
Anyone else know any better than I do on this one? (I'm sure there are plenty who do)