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Finally a city is trying to do something with firearms that does NOT violate the second amendment of the constitution

For the first time in at least 15 years, the Colorado Springs Police Department has stopped destroying weapons that have been confiscated in criminal investigations and is looking into whether they can be auctioned for profit.

The idea of selling confiscated firearms is the brainchild of Vice Mayor Larry Small, who proposed it in February as a money-making endeavor when the City Council was trying to close a nearly $17 million budget gap.

Only Councilwoman Jan Martin sided with the Police Department, which recommended against auctioning the weapons and essentially putting them back on the street.

“They are still looking into the different legal requirements and how best we could actually sell the guns, what’s going to be the most cost effective way for us to get it done,” said Sgt. Scott Schwall, a police spokesman.

“We are not at a point yet where we’re going to sell any guns. But we are researching it and should have a proposal for City Council here in a month or so,” he said.

Since February, police have accumulated a small arsenal of weapons, although the exact number and type were not immediately available.

Selling firearms no longer needed as evidence is expected to generate $10,000 this year, an amount the president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police said may not be worth the effort or the possibility of a future tragedy.

“I would feel badly if I released a gun, even legitimately and legally, and then down the road it would end up in the hands of the wrong person … and be used against an officer or used in the commission of a crime against a citizen,” Jack Rinchich, chief of the Department of Safety and Security at the University of Charleston, said today.

Rinchich said he is “strongly in favor” of people’s right to bear arms but he tends to favor disposing weapons in police custody.

“Anything that’s been seized or used in the commission of crime, or has the potential of getting back on the street, ought to be eliminated,” he said. “There’s enough guns out there.”

Small said he’s no more concerned about a weapon that police would auction ending up in the wrong hands than a weapon someone could buy from a registered gun dealer.

“It is a requirement that when they’re auctioned off, they be auctioned off to registered dealers,” he said.

Two or three years ago, El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa said he started auctioning weapons that have either been turned over or gone unclaimed.

“It costs money to destroy them, first of all,” he said. “Second of all, it’s an opportunity for us to raise revenues to support our own firearms replacement and ammunition replacement.”

Maketa disputed the argument that the firearms could end up in criminals’ hands.

“That just carries no logic at all,” he said. “The intent is to sell them to dealers, and they’ll follow the rules and systems in place to get them into the hands of law-abiding citizens that are using them for lawful purposes. I’m not aware of any resurfacing again and having been involved in a crime.”