this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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Communities across the U.S. are fueling a secondary arms market by giving seized and surrendered guns to disposal services that destroy one part and resell the rest.

When Flint, Mich., announced in September that 68 assault weapons collected in a gun buyback would be incinerated, the city cited its policy of never reselling firearms.

“Gun violence continues to cause enormous grief and trauma,” said Mayor Sheldon Neeley. “I will not allow our city government to profit from our community’s pain by reselling weapons that can be turned against Flint residents.”

But Flint’s guns were not going to be melted down. Instead, they made their way to a private company that has collected millions of dollars taking firearms from police agencies, destroying a single piece of each weapon stamped with the serial number and selling the rest as nearly complete gun kits. Buyers online can easily replace what’s missing and reconstitute the weapon.

Hundreds of towns and cities have turned to a growing industry that offers to destroy guns used in crimes, surrendered in buybacks or replaced by police force upgrades. But these communities are in fact fueling a secondary arms market, where weapons slated for destruction are recycled into civilian hands, often with no background check required, according to interviews and a review of gun disposal contracts, patent records and online listings for firearms parts.

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[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 34 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Buyers online can easily replace what’s missing and reconstitute the weapon.

I like how this article doesn't mention that since it is the serialized receiver they need to "fix" the buyer still has to pass a NICs background check at an FFL to get the receiver separately, instead implying they can just buy it online like ordering car parts. Nice subtle move to make it sound worse than it actually is, gotta push those feature bans!

[–] babboa@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago

Yep. Most people clutching their pearls at this story don't have any idea how difficult it is to actually build anything outside a gen 3 Glock or an ar-15. And those have "80% kits" that basically say "drill hole here" available on the market. Try finding a hi point, lorcin, or even Taurus or low end S&W pistol, or cheap shotgun(like a Stevens or Remington 870) receiver(because that's most of what comes into these guys who have businesses like this), and you'll find out it is a) cost prohibitive, b) still has to go through a nics check bc there's nobody home building much of anything (well, the hi point may be the odd one out bc there are 3d printed frames you could make). What they do end up doing is a lot of business with guys refurbishing grandpa's old deer or duck gun.

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

And thankfully these kits are out there. Say you have inherited grandpa's old rifle and it has a clean receiver but is otherwise pretty thrashed... You can spend a few hundred bucks and get parts to repair old guns that would otherwise have no parts availability.

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 11 months ago
[–] NoMoreLurking@startrek.website 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I guess that companies like this one

https://youtu.be/5q54yLuJlKk?feature=shared

adhere to regulations, but it is not unimaginable that there are those who could make the same part and sell it under the table. It's not even a necessity to own a CNC to cut this part out of a block of aluminium, an old-time milling machine and 20 hours worth of training are enough to get the job done.

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 11 months ago

Well yes crimes can always be committed but making and selling without a manufacturers license is a serious crime punishable by iirc 10yr in prison or more. Making your own is legal but virtually impossible to stop even if they have to make a luty SMG and ECM rifle the barrel at home.

[–] ExLisper@linux.community 34 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I would like to have the imagination that would let me come up with schemes like that. It would never occur to me to make money off of gun violence. American capitalist are something else...

[–] vivadanang@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

you'd be amazed how far we take our fetishes here. the pro-murdering-kids-lobby is hella strong.

[–] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

the pro-murdering-kids-lobby

They prefer to be called "conservatives" now.

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

They already pivoted, it's “pro-life libertarians” now. AKA the people who think that murdering kids is ok as long as it happens outside the womb.

[–] Jaysyn@kbin.social 32 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Sounds like fraud, but I'm sure they have some bullshit legaleze protecting their ass.

[–] radix@lemmy.world 49 points 11 months ago (1 children)

A "gun" is legally defined. There are dozens of parts, but usually only 1-2 are deemed to be the "firearm" for legal purposes, and those get the serial number. The rest, even when necessary for proper operation of the weapon, are essentially just accessories as far as the law is concerned.

[–] Machinist3359@kbin.social 11 points 11 months ago (8 children)

Sounds like a useful loophole for gun reform and getting around the 2nd amendment.

[–] Bgugi@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's a practical line that has to be drawn. Otherwise your going to have to go for a background check for every pin screw and spring you want to buy.

[–] QuinceDaPence@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Some countries use the barrel as the S/N part instead of the receiver but I'd rather a wear item not be the s/n item. Plus, with AR15 you can buy one receiver and then gets finished uppers in 5.56mm, 9mm, .50 Beowulf, .300 Blackout etc.

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[–] VintageTech@sh.itjust.works 30 points 11 months ago

I attended an auction in UT where I came across guns like this and the part that was destroyed on most of them was the serial number. Yay 'Merica and upcycling?

[–] kerrigan778@lemmy.world 23 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Most of a gun isn't the part that is legally considered a gun. The lower receiver, which is the part that makes it shoot and has the serial number on it is legally the gun. The rest are just gun accessories essentially and anybody can buy and sell them. You can't just turn any amount of them into one functional gun, you need the lower receiver. You cannot buy a lower receiver without going through a background check and the fact that you can buy everything but the lower receiver without a background check doesn't change the fact that you don't have a gun without getting a hold of the lower receiver which does require a background check to get.

This article is rage bait for people who don't know about guns.

[–] vivadanang@lemm.ee 17 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

You cannot buy a lower receiver without going through a background check

yeah but you can easily buy an 80% arms lower, finish that yourself, and no bg check involved.

Or you could just get a lower from private sales which aren't required to bg check.

Saying it's impossimole wivvout de lowah is just bullshit and you know it. But cute attempt to be cranky. Like you're attempting to rage bait for people who don't know enough about the arms trade.

[–] kerrigan778@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, there is no (federal) law against making a gun yourself or from a kit that has basically always been a thing. You can also 3d print most of all of a gun. And this also does nothing to change the lack of UBC law. Those are unrelated issues. (And for the record, I support most UBC laws).

The ability to buy or build a gun without a background check via private party is unchanged by the ability to cheaply buy gun accessories from destroyed guns.

[–] vivadanang@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

The ability to buy or build a gun without a background check via private party is unchanged by the ability to cheaply buy gun accessories from destroyed guns.

yeah pretty fucked up that we'll let people buy most of a gun without a check, then the rest without another check. good to find ground we can agree on.

440 million firearms in the USA. Never seems like enough to some folks. And you know what, I'd be chill with it, if they could fucking secure their weapons.

But they won't. Sometime this week, someone, somewhere is gonna get murdered with a firearm some dickhole couldn't bother to secure, who left it in their car, who didn't even know it was already stolen because they're too fucking dumb to do the minimum.

[–] kerrigan778@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

No disagreement there, my guns are locked the fuck up and UBCs and gun storage laws are no brainers.

[–] vivadanang@lemm.ee 5 points 11 months ago

TY. I wish more gun loving people had the same attitude.

[–] FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world 23 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (6 children)

Gun buyback programs are almost always a joke of one kind or another.

[–] douz0a0bouz@midwest.social 21 points 11 months ago (2 children)

It’s wild how you get: gun buyback programs = bad. Rather than: corrupt corporations need watchdogs.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Gun buy backs are a total joke. All you end up buying is a bunch of busted ass guns that nobody wanted. Wish they would have one around here. I could unload a few that I hate, are useless or nonfunctional. Get paid son!

Saw a hilarious picture of an Australian buy back. Those ancient rifles, shotguns and rusted out revolvers were laughable. If you used a photo tool to gather the most common color from that pile, it would be the dark orange guns turn when they rust. Bet not 1 in 10 was functional.

And the idiots in the article were patting themselves on the back for doing such a fine job taking these guns out of circulation! They were so very proud.

[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

How many mass shootings has Australia had in the past decade, again?

[–] Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee 8 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Mandatory confiscation and eliminating new sales =! US gun buybacks where the stores are still open

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[–] FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

You think intentionally fraudulent programs with no meaningful oversight or meaningful accountability are OK? That's what seems wild to me but ok.

There's no way this is the first time this has happened either.

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[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Only in the US, again. Other places just crush that stuff and melt it.

[–] FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Pretty much, yeah.

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[–] originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

There's no real oversight, no accountability, little to no regulation, and the prices they offer are almost always well below the fair market value of the firearm (never mind the black market value) so most people end up keeping, selling, or pawning the gun instead. Functional firearms are kept in circulation as a result (the opposite of the supposedly intended goal).

There are also cases of people just making $20 pipe guns to rip off even the well intentioned programs, some programs try to mitigate this, some don't, but there are no set rules beyond whatever the program decides.

I guarantee you, the program mentioned in the article is not the first to pull that reselling shit too.

These programs need to be regulated and there needs to be meaningful oversight or they will always be a joke. As it stands they are, at best, public relations campaigns and, at worst, fraudulent and potentially very dangerous.

[–] originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

That’s unfortunate. I wish we had competent government.

[–] FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

Groups like the NRA put a lot of money into lobbying politicians to protect the gun industry. They don't even really care about the 2nd amendment, they care about protecting the bottom line of companies like Colt and S&W.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 months ago

Too busy focusing on Not Abjectly Cruel Government. Competent Government is another step once non-rich people are safe and have rights.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Buybacks don't make a lot of sense when the people turning in their guns can just use the money to buy new ones. May as well cut out the middleman and just give money directly to gun manufacturers.

[–] FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I kinda doubt many are doing that, the prices buy backs offer are usually ridiculously low: They'd be financially better off just trading the gun, doing a private sale, or illegally selling it for even more to a convicted felon on the black market.

If buyback programs really wanted to get guns off the street, they'd pay more money and the process that occurs after the buyback would be transparent and verifiable.

What they actually seem to be are a mix of shady profiteering (like mentioned in the article above) or PR feel-good projects that allow politicians to act like they're actually doing something to fix the problem, when the reality is, it's a band-aid at best and profiteering off of undermining programs meant to reduce gun violence.

[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This assumes nobody has anything to do with their money other than spend it on guns.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 3 points 11 months ago

It's an exaggeration, but here's something that's not.

There's demonstrably a big market for guns in the US. A certain number of gun sales will happen every year. Used guns reduce the demand for new guns, thus reducing the money gun manufacturers can make. By destroying surrendered guns rather than selling them, buyback programs are choosing not to let the surrendered guns satisfy part of the demand for guns, thus increasing the demand for new guns and thus the revenue of gun makers.

Buyback programs can reduce the number of guns in specific communities, but the number of people nationwide who have guns is limited only by the number of people who want guns and have legal access to them, not the availability of guns for purchase. In other words, the usefulness of a buyback program is largely predicted on the discredited theory of supply-side economics.

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[–] FluorideMind@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

Seems sensationalized, they destroy the part considered the firearm (lower receiver) and sell the rest for parts. I don't see any issues with that.

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