Colorado Springs police may sell seized firearms

Reporting from Colorado Springs, Colo. – This conservative city is

taking an unusual, some might say extreme, step to try to stem its

fiscal woes: It’s entering the gun business.

The

Colorado Springs City Council is expected in coming weeks to approve

the final details of a program that would allow the Police Department

to sell confiscated firearms to federally licensed gun dealers. Police

have already stopped melting down the hundreds of guns they collect

from crime scenes, drug houses or civilians who don’t need them anymore.

The

sales are projected to bring in about $10,000 a year, only a slight

dent for a city that faced a deficit of one-quarter its $200-million

annual budget this year. But it still helps, said Vice Mayor Larry

Small, who proposed the gun sales.

"Every penny counts," Small said.

Read more…
Colorado Springs is home to the Army’s Ft. Carson, the Air Force

Academy and NORAD. Men and women in uniform mingle easily with

civilians in the shopping centers and strollable downtown that sits in

the shadow of 14,000-foot Pikes Peak. People here are comfortable

around firearms.

But even in Colorado Springs, the idea of law enforcement as gun sellers has raised some eyebrows.

The

Police Department objected, only to be overruled by the council, which

in February voted 8 to 1 to direct the department to draw up the

program it will consider this month. Lt. David Whitlock said the Police

Department has been moving cautiously to address the many concerns the

sales raise.

"There’s all kinds of ancillary issues, one of

which is the politics of being in the gun-selling business," Whitlock

said. "The other is not introducing another weapon into the community."

Jan

Martin, the lone council member who voted against the sales, said the

small amount of money they could bring in is outweighed by the risk

that a gun sold by the city could one day be used for a crime.

"I

remember what some of those weapons were used for," Martin said. "Just

the idea of putting those weapons back on the street is unconscionable."
- [source]