Posted on 08/12/2013 9:39:37 PM PDT by george76
Ha! That’s the least smart thung I have read on freep in a while. Evidence is either returned to the owner or if they don’t claim it (in the case of guns) is destroyed.
Not many cities auction off guns anymore because as soon as someone does something stupid with them the city gets sued...
The only time a gun gets traded is when glock takes back a glock cuz your buying another glock.
I dont think you have been paying attention. It is still a very common practice to package confiscated guns with official side arms in a deal with a licensed firearms dealer to acquire new side arms for police departments.
I recall one instance last year where a city was stymied from destroying confiscated firearms by the state constitution that prohibited the destruction of valuable property (the confiscated firearms had an estimated value over $200,000). So the deal that included the confiscated firearms went forward.
As far a liability goes the police departments are shielded from liability because the firearms are no longer in police custody and are no longer city property once they are transferred to the licensed dealer. The dealer is also then bound by law to do background checks on the sale of the firearms acquired from the city.
Sure destroying confiscated guns is the politically correct thing to do these days but it is a very expensive statement to make when your city is going broke and your officers side arms are aging fast.
Oh and if you are going to impugn someones intelligence maybe you should proof read your post before you do.
I reserve the right to have mispelled words do to my phone’s autoincorrect...and I am not saying it never happens...just that it is not common and the story we were commenting on referred to a gun being taken for evidence in a criminal case...not a gun grab for monetary gain.
If I was trying to impugn someone’s intelligence I would have said it was the dumbest thing I had read..I purposely used the phrase I chose so I wouldn’t call someone a name but just comment in their opinion.
Actually the story did not state that the gun was taken for evidence but a poster suggested that was the cause, the story itself only stated that the police took the weapon.
As the shotgun was not fired in the incident there was no cause for the police to take the weapon in to evidence. Most likely it is the policy of the department to take any weapon in view when they arrive on the scene of a crime in to custody.
In my experience of reading about these cases it then becomes a legal tug of war between the police department and the owner of the weapon for position of the weapon. Most often the owner of the weapon gives up because the cost of recovery becomes more than the weapon is worth. The police then have defacto ownership of the weapon and it is eventually an unclaimed weapon that is part of a gun replacement deal or less often these days an auction.
It is my experience that what is written in a news story has little to zero to do with what really happened but my experience in being at crime scenes involving felony assaults involving weapons is that everything which is evidence supporting or disproving all persons’ s involved stories...witnesses victims and suspect...get thrown into evidence.
That’s just been my experience...and to read a “ news story” and try to take the lack of reality based info in the news piece and make assumptions claiming theft of property for financial gain or other reasons is just silly.
When I read a news story related to gun or conservatives or religion I say to myself “wow...if that was true it would be amazing” because the media rarely get it right on thise topics.
As long as this woman has an appeal pending evidence must be retained. Then eventually it is lost.
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