A bill before the Kentucky legislature aims to roll back a reform of firearms law enacted to preserve resources for the benefit of the public. In 2000, on July 14, a Kentucky gun law reform bill became effective. The bill prevented departments from destroying valuable property. It required police departments to send the property to the Kentucky State Police (KSP) to be auctioned to firearm dealers instead of being destroyed.
The funds obtained by the auction are used to help make police departments more effective. Since the year 2000, about 20 million dollars of revenue has been generated by the program. As more people own more guns, more guns are confiscated. In 2022, $1.1 million dollars was generated by the program, according to Fox56news. The average revenue generated in the last five years is 1.09 million dollars per year, based on KSP records obtained by AmmoLand and other reports of 6555 guns seized in 2023.
All auctioned firearms are placed in the ordinary channels of commercial sales. They are subject to all the restrictions and limitations placed on the sale of new firearms.
Basic economics apply: At any given time, the demand for a product can be satisfied by a new product, product obtained on the used market, or a combination of both new and used products. It is also possible for consumers to be manufacturers and make their own products.
The more used firearms are sold, the more demand for new firearms is reduced. The practical effect of selling confiscated and surrendered firearms is to reduce the profit of firearms manufacturers while satisfying the demand created by those seeking legal firearms.
The proposed bill, SB 178, would require KSP to destroy firearms used in a violent crime.
Subject to the duty to return confiscated firearms to innocent owners pursuant to KRS 500.090, all firearms confiscated by the Department of Kentucky 5State Police and not retained for official use pursuant to KRS 500.090 may [shall] be destroyed or sold at public auction to federally licensed firearms dealers holding a license appropriate for the type of firearm sold, but if the firearm was used in the commission of an offense that would classify a person as a violent offender under KRS 439.3401, then the firearm shall be destroyed.
The effect of the law would be much broader. The law is specifically changed to allow the destruction of firearms, with may be destroyed substituted for shall be sold. The incentives created by this bill are perverse. How is anyone to know what firearms are “used” with what crimes? There is no requirement for a tracking system to track firearms with particular crimes. If such a system is created, the cost of maintaining it defeats much of the benefit of selling the firearms. If a local police department claims all of its guns are “associated” with such crimes, who is going to investigate them? The Louisville Police department is already attempting to defeat the purpose of the required firearms auctions.
What are the benefits of the bill? Here are the emotional claims.
But for grieving families like Trabue’s, the only thing that matters, is preventing more loss and heartbreak.
“I want this to be where these guns are not back out in the streets killing someone else and then destroying someone else’s family,” Trabue said.
Those claims are objectively false. The firearms are put into normal commercial channels of commerce. They are subject to the same controls as new guns. If they are not available, plenty of new guns are available. If a person cannot obtain a used gun, they need only buy a new gun instead. The idea of destroying used guns, instead of selling them, to prevent crime, is absurd. The absurdity is shown in the second sentence. Guns do not kill people. Guns do not have volition. A particular gun is no more likely to be used to kill someone than another gun of similar function and caliber.
The objective result of the bill would be to enrich gun manufacturers at the expense of the citizens of Kentucky.
The purpose of the bill is to reinforce a bizarre view of reality: Guns are bad. Destroying guns is good. The view, in a society where the legal selling of guns is protected by the foundational legal document (the Constitution) is delusional. Destroy one gun, and another is easily made and sold. Destroying guns only makes sense if there is a limited supply of guns. In reality, the supply of guns is unlimited. The reason to destroy a gun in this scenario is to propagate the ideology “guns are bad”. Such irrational ideology should be rejected and opposed at all levels of society.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
LMAO. These idiots are still blaming the gun and not the person. I am starting to think they will never make the connection like Ope says between an inanimate object and the person that actually pulls the trigger and is the violent criminal. There is no such thing as “gun violence” except in the terminology used, rules, laws and now agencies made and named under the same misleading label. The person is violent, not the gun and the more guns we have on the streets in honest upstanding peoples hands, the less violence there will be. It’s this simple. Take… Read more »
A wise person who’s identity is lost in the mists of time summed it up in only 5 words.
“There ain’t no fixin’ stupid.”
this is part of the plan by progs to reduce the numbers of firearms in civilian hands. make second hand firearms not available for people to purchase therefore driving up the cost of new(er) firearms when the second hand ones are not available. so, would the legislature of KY rather tax the citizens more to fund the police depts instead of selling firearms in possession of KY law enforcement agencies to fund police depts? but then they don’t care, they are spending someone else’s money. firearms do not destroy anyone’s life. people do that by the way they interact with… Read more »
This stupidity comes from our three blue enclaves in an otherwise sensibly red state. They are clutching their pearls in horror at the chance that an evil gun might be sold to some unsuspecting citizen who would then be consumed by the evil inherent in the gun because the gun became imbued with evil powers when it was used to commit a crime. There wouldn’t really be much loss of resources because those three blue enclaves have already been thwarting the intent of the original bill by various means that include disassembling guns that they were required to turn in… Read more »
I believe the purpose of this change in the law requiring sale of “crime guns” came about after the First National Bank Mass Shooting event in Louisville. When people became aware that the AR15 used in the shooting would/could be sold at auction and “end up back on the street” they felt this was wrong for a number of reasons. In order to change KRS 16.220, they had to define events or crimes that warranted destruction of the crime gun. They choose “if the firearm was used in the commission of an offense that would classify a person as a violent… Read more »
KY jelly goes in smooth
I was raised on the Indiana side of the Ohio River. My patriarchal side came from Indiana and before that Germany. My matriarchal side came from Kentucky and before that Seminole Tribe. Consequentially, I have relatives from the great Commonwealth State, (they are both thanks to an 1850 Kentucky Constitution change) Kentucky. Needless to say, there is a huge difference between the clan. Our family reunions when I was a kid was a hoot. Sometimes we actually had one where there wasn’t a fight or two, but not very often. After-all, all you need to know about the mental agility… Read more »