Guns Go From Police to Streets

I thought we were taking guns off the streets..?

Washington — Two guns used in high-profile shootings this year at the Pentagon and a Las Vegas courthouse both came from the same unlikely place – the police and court system of Memphis, Tenn.

Law enforcement officials said both guns were once seized in criminal cases in Memphis. The officials described how the weapons made their separate ways from an evidence vault to gun dealers and to the shooters.

The use of guns that once were in police custody and later involved in attacks on police officers highlights a little-known divide in gun policy in the United States: Many cities and states destroy guns gathered in criminal investigations, but others sell or trade the weapons to get other guns or buy equipment such as bulletproof vests.

In fact, on the day of the Pentagon shooting, March 4, the Tennessee governor signed legislation revising state law on confiscated guns. Before, law enforcement agencies in the state had the option of destroying a gun. Under the new version, agencies can destroy a gun only if it’s inoperable or unsafe.

Kentucky has a similar law, but it’s not clear how many other states have laws specifically designed to promote the police sale or trade of confiscated weapons.

A nationwide review by The Associated Press in December found that over the previous two years, 24 states – mostly in the South and West, where gun-rights advocates are particularly strong – have passed 47 laws loosening gun restrictions. Gun-rights groups are making a greater effort to pass favorable legislation in state capitals.

John Timoney, who led the Philadelphia and Miami police departments and served as New York’s No. 2 police official, said he doesn’t believe that police departments should put more guns into the market.

“I just think it’s unseemly for police departments to be selling guns that later turn up,” said Timoney, who now works for Andrews International, a security consulting firm.

He said he had once been offered the chance to sell guns to raise money for the police budget.

“Obviously, we always need the money, but I just said, ‘No, we will take the loss and get rid of the guns,’ ” Timoney said.

A spokeswoman for the Memphis police said gun swaps are a way to save taxpayer money.

One weapon in the Pentagon attack was seized by Memphis police in 2005 and later traded to a gun dealer; the gun used in the Jan. 4 courthouse shooting in Las Vegas was sold by a judge’s order and the proceeds given to the Memphis-area sheriff’s office. Neither weapon was sold by the Memphis law enforcement agencies directly to the men who later used them to shoot officers.

In both cases, the weapons first went to licensed gun dealers but later came into the hands of men who were legally barred from possessing them – one a convicted felon, the other mentally ill.

The history of the two guns in the recent attacks was described by officials from multiple law enforcement agencies on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the investigations. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives provided reports on the gun traces to the investigating agency, but it is barred from publicly disclosing the results.

At the Pentagon, gunman John Patrick Bedell carried two 9mm handguns, one of them a Ruger.

Law enforcement officials say Bedell, a man with a history of severe psychiatric problems, had been sent a letter by California authorities Jan. 10 telling him that he was prohibited from buying a gun because of his mental history.

Nineteen days later, the officials say, Bedell bought the Ruger at a gun show in Las Vegas. Such a sale by a private individual does not require the kind of background check that would have stopped Bedell’s purchase.

Mike Campbell, an ATF spokesman in Washington, would not confirm the details. He would say only that Bedell “appears to have purchased the gun from a private seller.”

The gun already had changed hands among gun dealers in Georgia and Pennsylvania by the time that Bedell bought it. Officer Karen Rudolph, a Memphis police spokeswoman, said her department traded the weapon to a dealer in 2008 for a different gun that was better for police work.

The Ruger had sat in Memphis police storage for years at that point, after being confiscated from a convicted felon at a 2005 traffic stop.

*jacked from jsonline

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DJWillieShakes