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Posted
3 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

That thread also contains a good discussion of Short Stop, and where to get good catfish in town.  Because Surly.

And selfies from Chez Zee.

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Posted
1 hour ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

I don't think there were many cop cars there.

You can smash through a basic brick wall with a honda civic.  Or fuck, any of the big-ass pickups several of those cops surely drove to the scene.

As an emergency responder, you are presented with a problem.  Your job is to solve it.  Use all tools available, think creatively.  "Get me into that classroom, without using the obvious doorway."  Done.

Posted
42 minutes ago, Satchel said:

Or Wednesday in America. Multiple victims being reported.

One thing's for sure -- we can all rest easy that our conservative leadership around the country is taking bold action to protect the people from being turned into perforated chunks of shredded meat by.....banning books and making it criminal for trans people to go to public bathrooms.

And in multiple states, a majority of people vote for that shit.

We're beyond saving.

And we get what we deserve.

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Posted
12 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

You can smash through a basic brick wall with a honda civic.  Or fuck, any of the big-ass pickups several of those cops surely drove to the scene.

As an emergency responder, you are presented with a problem.  Your job is to solve it.  Use all tools available, think creatively.  "Get me into that classroom, without using the obvious doorway."  Done.

I love that movie. Of course it would work

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Doc Sam Beckett said:

I love that movie. Of course it would work

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His story about the pro (maybe....at this point, we don't know) to Rob Lowe in About Last Night was the absolute peak of Jim Belushi's career.  It was fantastic.

Posted
On 12/5/2023 at 1:08 PM, Goofyboy said:


That one parent did, didn’t they? Didn’t a mom make it inside?

The cops put handcuffs on her, then took them off, then she ran into the school, grabbed her kids, and got out.  

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Posted
34 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

"Get me into that classroom, without using the obvious doorway."  Done.

THE PRESIDENT:  Yeah.  We thought, for three days, this is what was going to happen.  It was actually — look, nobody was even hurt.  Our K-9, as they call — I call it a dog, a beautiful dog, a talented dog — was injured and brought back.  But we had no soldier injured.  And they did a lot of shooting, and they did a lot of blasting, even not going through the front door.  You know, you would think you go through the door.  If you’re a normal person, you say, “Knock, knock.  May I come in?”  The fact is that they blasted their way into the house and a very heavy wall, and it took them literally seconds.  By the time those things went off, they had a beautiful, big hole, and they ran in and they got everybody by surprise.

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Posted
1 minute ago, Bullneck said:

THE PRESIDENT:  Yeah.  We thought, for three days, this is what was going to happen.  It was actually — look, nobody was even hurt.  Our K-9, as they call — I call it a dog, a beautiful dog, a talented dog — was injured and brought back.  But we had no soldier injured.  And they did a lot of shooting, and they did a lot of blasting, even not going through the front door.  You know, you would think you go through the door.  If you’re a normal person, you say, “Knock, knock.  May I come in?”  The fact is that they blasted their way into the house and a very heavy wall, and it took them literally seconds.  By the time those things went off, they had a beautiful, big hole, and they ran in and they got everybody by surprise.

Oh FFS.  I'd forgotten all about that.

I hate this timeline so much.

Posted
30 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

There were a bunch of them parked in the middle of the road preventing access by ambulances.

I Dont Get It Over My Head GIF by Lil Jon

Posted
On 12/6/2023 at 1:22 AM, wildcat09 said:

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/12/05/uvalde-officer-student-trainings-mass-shootings/

Too long to quote entirely, but jesus christ.  Seriously, why do we have cops if this is what we get? 

I'm somewhat in disbelief at this point that none of the police who abandoned their duty to protect those children that day have killed themselves. Are most of them even ashamed?

 

On 12/6/2023 at 1:30 AM, YGIFS said:

The children were being too quiet?  That's the new excuse?  Remember that "Band of Brothers" episode during the Battle of the Bulge where all the paratroopers were instructed to yell and scream and light fires and wave their arms to the Germans at night to completely give away their position?  Yeah, I guessed I missed that one, too.

As stated above, it is absolutely as insane to me as the shooting itself that not one of these officers has taken the honorable way out and swallowed a bullet in a parking lot somewhere.  They all walk past each other every single day and they all know what went down and somehow they go about their lives like nothing happened.  That is so fucking bizarre to me.  I mean, a handful of cops that may see each other once a month is one thing.  But this is hundreds and hundreds of cops who all live/work/shop in the same areas every single fucking day.  How the fuck do you carry on like that?  How do they look at their children and their wives with that shame?  They should enter some kinda murder-suicide pact and at least be a man about it all...

It takes a certain amount of courage to kill yourself. Something almost all of the law enforcement there, that day in Uvalde, lacked.  

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Posted
3 hours ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

I Dont Get It Over My Head GIF by Lil Jon

Replace that with “the point.” Irony is apparently not your strong suit. 

28 minutes ago, Jhawkmvp said:

It takes a certain amount of courage to kill yourself. 

Bill Maher?

Posted (edited)
On 12/5/2023 at 10:22 AM, wildcat09 said:

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/12/05/uvalde-officer-student-trainings-mass-shootings/

Too long to quote entirely, but jesus christ.  Seriously, why do we have cops if this is what we get? 

I'm somewhat in disbelief at this point that none of the police who abandoned their duty to protect those children that day have killed themselves. Are most of them even ashamed?

I knew I shouldn't have opened this thread. Somebody was blasting away in San Antonio and Austin, so I thought I'd check in.

First, I don't have children nor am I particularly partial to them. Second, I'm not trained in combat or police action. Lastly, I'm also not particularly brave as far as anyone can tell. It's rarely been tested in my soft suburban white boy life.

However:

image.png.42b74292009b2b66584b63c09cff2735.png

 

What do you mean you could not create a distraction? There were two doors and multiple windows, you chickenshit motherfucker. With only slight coordination, you could have "breeched" the room from multiple directions covering both rooms.

"Both rooms." There was one shooter and two rooms he had to defend. If you assault in the simple way as described above, you know you will secure one of those rooms from anymore violence.

Shattering glass and two doors being attacked is at least as good as your flashbangs, Officer Military Jargon Sans Military Guts. 

I'd hope I'd have the courage to take this relatively high percentage chance of survival action to act against a man perpetrating a massacre of children all seemingly braver and more worthwhile than I might be. It goes double for the teachers.

If I didn't, I'd hope I'd have shame enough to absolutely prostrate myself before the survivors prior to doing myself in. I'm sure that I'd never sleep again without heavy narcotics.

Pictures of these fucking cowards who stole money from the government hoping they'd never have to earn it should be run on TV, the Internet, and whatever other outlet there may be on the anniversary of their disgrace.

I don't care if the killer is taking out kids, grandparents, rich people, or immigrants: you must act. If you don't act, don't defend your inaction. If you defend your action, I hope you live that day every time you shut your eyes to sleep.

It's this over emphasis on officer safety that has been bent to serve needlessly humiliating and brutal protocols for simple arrests and opening fire on mean-looking negroes. I'd have you fuckers wearing hot pink coveralls out on the highways of the state picking up garbage with signs announcing who you are and why you're there.

Sorry not sorry for the rant. I know I'm just venting a fraction of what we all feel. 

How dare these male things appeal for understanding and sympathy?

Edited by RomaVicta
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Posted
22 hours ago, hornmpa96 said:

Protect and Serve should be replaced with “Get home safe to our families”

I don’t understand how members of the Uvalde PD are able to walk in that community without being called cowards every day.

Because they'd get shot by these same cops. That's why those dickheads applied for the job.

Bullying.

Posted (edited)
21 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

You can smash through a basic brick wall with a honda civic.  Or fuck, any of the big-ass pickups several of those cops surely drove to the scene.

As an emergency responder, you are presented with a problem.  Your job is to solve it.  Use all tools available, think creatively.  "Get me into that classroom, without using the obvious doorway."  Done.

There were already holes in the wall. Windows.

image.png.4f92f2d4af4e6532c3e5bd017b4dd07d.png

Edited by RomaVicta
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Posted (edited)
30 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

There were already holes in the wall. Windows.

image.png.4f92f2d4af4e6532c3e5bd017b4dd07d.png

What's that photo from? I'd like to see the video.

Edited by FirstTimeCaller
Posted
14 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

ABC. I didn't watch the video. I was already too triggered.

Wish I didn't. Lots of pictures of those children at the awards ceremony just prior to the shooting.

I can't express the frustration, disgust, and anger at the leaders who do nothing to address this happening again. How those parents have kept it together (if they even have) is amazing to me.

Posted

Some absolutely gut-punching victim testimony in Michigan today in the sentencing phase of Ethan Crumbley's trial:

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/ethan-crumbley-sentencing-oxford-shooting-12-08-23/index.html

Quote

Oxford High School senior Madeline Johnson was walking with her best friend Madisyn Baldwin until they had to split to go to their respective classes.

"I said goodbye to her and turned around," she said. "I didn't think that the bye was going to be permanent."

That's because moments later, Ethan Crumbley opened fire at students in the school, and Baldwin became one of the four victims of the November 2021 shooting.

"As soon as I started walking in the other direction, I heard the first round of bullets. The pattern of them still plays in my head every single day," Johnson said in her victim impact statement Friday as she stood wearing a shirt that had a doodle that Baldwin drew for her. "This is one of the only things I have left to remember her."

Johnson said she blamed herself for leaving her best friend that day, thinking that would make things different.

For long, she said she didn't believe her best friend was gone. "The moment it really sank in that she was gone forever was the day we had to go back to the high school."

"I sat in my ceramics class — our ceramics class, our favorite class — and I watched as students pulled through the door. And I waited for her to come. I saved her a seat right next to me, and I waited and waited, and I finally realized that she was never coming," she said.

She requested the judge to sentence the shooter with the harshest penalty.

Quote

A 14-year-old student who was attending history class at Oxford High School when Ethan Crumbley opened fire said that as the shooting began to unfold, she felt certain that she would be killed.

"I wouldn't be able to hug my parents goodbye as I left for college," she recalled thinking during her victim impact statement. "I thought I was never going to be able to get married because it was all about to end here, here in my history class."

She said the emotional impact of the shooting is ongoing.

"November 30, 2021, I was given my very own life sentence," the student, who is now 16, said. "I was only 14. I'm now sentenced to a lifetime of PTSD. I've spent hundreds of hours in therapy offices."

Her friend Hana St. Juliana was killed in the rampage. "She didn't deserve it," she said.

"Whatever punishment the shooter gets, it will not be enough," she said.

She then addressed Crumbley directly, who remained staring at the floor.

"I will never have an ounce of forgiveness for you," she said. "You're just an insecure, weak, fragile, insecure boy who could not deal with his own problems."
"You didn't rob me of my kind heart, even though I'm sure you wanted to."

Quote

Mason and Madisyn Baldwin were cousins, but they were so close, that they were more like siblings, Crystal Baldwin said of their relationship. They rode to Oxford High School every day together until things changed forever when a shooter opened fire in 2021, killing Madisyn.

Baldwin, Mason's mother and Madisyn's aunt, said she called her son right away when she first heard that there was a shooting.

“The words he spoke when he answered will haunt me for the rest of my life. I asked him if he was ok, he said, ‘Mom had I been standing where I was 10 seconds longer, it could have been me’” Baldwin said in court ahead of shooter Ethan Crumbley's sentencing.

She hung up with her son and texted Madisyn who was a senior at Oxford, Baldwin told the court.

“The thought of anything happening to her made me sick to my stomach," Baldwin said.

The family only found out what happened to her hours later.

When Baldwin finally was able to pick up her son after the shooting, he described a body outside the classroom door and blood on his shoes.

They stayed to watch for Madisyn to come off one of the buses from the school, but she never arrived. Officials told her family that Madisyn had been killed.

“Then came the cries and screaming from Madisyn'’s parents,” she said, and called it a “real-life nightmare."

“She knew what she wanted out of her life and what she was going to do once she graduated. She wanted to become a behavioral analyst and study neuroscience. Something she will never have the chance to do," Baldwin said.

Baldwin said while her son Mason will graduate, Madisyn never will. She said her parents attended the graduation ceremony for her class and accepted the diploma on her behalf.

“No child should ever have to experience losing a cousin, friend or daughter ever,” she added.

 

Quote

Linda Watson, whose son Aiden was shot during the Oxford High School shooting, described the horrifying moment she learned what had happened.

"That was a moment I will never forget," she said during her victim impact statement ahead of shooter Ethan Crumbley's sentencing.

"He was screaming 'mom, I've been shot, help me,'" Watson recalled. "I didn't know exactly where he was in school at the time, if the danger was over, or if he was even safe."

She added that "it was snowing that day, so I told him to bury himself in the snow."

Watson described racing to find her son, who had been driven to a nearby business. "Even though it was only minutes, it felt like a lifetime before I found Aiden," she said.

Aiden had been shot in the leg. "There was a lot of blood," his mother said. "It covered his shoe in his pants."

Watson stayed overnight at the hospital with her son. "I was so grateful when he woke up," she said. "I put my head on his chest just to hear his heartbeat, grateful he was alive because some parents didn't have that the next morning."

Aiden has faced a long and painful journey to recover from his injuries, Watson said. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, he couldn't walk and needed around-the-clock care, including help getting to the toilet or to the shower. He's also experienced emotional aftershocks of the shooting, like debilitating panic attacks.

Watson also described the financial hardships imposed by her son's medical needs.

At one point, "I couldn't stop throwing up because I didn't know if we were going to be okay financially," she said.

Even two years after the massacre, Aiden still hasn't been able to return to school full term because of the emotional and physical impacts of his injuries, Watson said. He still experiences chronic pain and nerve damage.

"My son will have to live with pain, trauma, and limitations because of this forever," she said. "So too, should the shooter have to deal with the consequences of his actions by being incarcerated for the rest of his life."

 

Quote

Aiden Watson was a freshman at Oxford High School when he came out of his Algebra class to see why kids were running in the hallway.

"By the time I realized [there was an active shooter,] I was staring at Tate Myre. He was shot and he died," Watson said in his victim impact statement Friday. "I tried to run into my classroom. I didn't know I got shot until my friend told me I was hit."

Watson said after he made it outside the school, a stranger took him to another location, away from the shooting scene. "It was someone I didn't know and he told me that his kid was in" the high school, Watson said. "Instead of going in there to save his kid, he saved me instead."

During his recovery, Watson said he needed to "change the bandages all the time, and every time, it would peel off my skin and hurt badly."

"I didn't realize that I would never be able to run again without having pain," he said.

"After it happened, I was afraid to be in crowds and loud situations and indoors where I couldn't see how to get out," he added.

Watson told the judge the shooter, Ethan Crumbley, should be sentenced to life without parole. "He should never see the light of day again. He's a horrible human being."

 

Quote

Riley Franz, a survivor who was shot during the Oxford High School shooting, said she will never again be able to experience life like she used to before the attack.

"I mourn the person I used to be because, although I survived, the original pieces of me didn't," Franz said in court Friday ahead of shooter Ethan Crumbley's sentencing. "I will never have the opportunity to experience life like I used to, with so much joy and clarity."

Franz said she used to love attending school, but now she frequently has panic attacks at college.

"Now when I sit at a school, I feel anxious — checking for all my exits, highly in tune with all movements inside and outside the classroom, flinching at every sound from the walking upstairs to a pencil dropping, and counting down the minutes until I feel that I can breathe again," Franz said. "I cannot remember what it's like to feel safe and secure in any space that I occupy."

"I deserved to be a child that day, a student who made it to her class, not someone's target practice," she added.

 

Quote

The day of the shooting started like any other for Oxford High School student Kylie Ossege — until she said she thought a "balloon popped."

"I fell right to the ground. I remember hearing screams. I saw running, but I couldn't run. I was already down," she told the court in her victim impact statement. "I realized what had just happened — I was just shot. I thought I was going to die."

As she laid on the floor, Ossege said she attempted to get up but her legs weren't moving. She said she hit her legs in an attempt to regain any kind of feeling. "But not a single thing," she told the court.

Ossege described feeling warm under her cheek as she laid on the floor. It was the blood-soaked carpet that also made a "squish" sound against her ear.

When she reached her hand over her head, she said she realized it was 14-year-old shooting victim Hana St. Juliana. "I could hear her groaning beside me. Realizing I wasn't alone, I kept trying to reassure her, 'someone will come help us, don't worry, just keep breathing. Just please stay with me.' I said that to her a thousand times."

As they lay there "in loneliness," Ossege described repeating her mother's phone number "to make sure my brain was functioning" and "creating math problems in my head and solving them to make sure I wasn't dying."

Ossege said she spent a week in the intensive care unit (ICU) and five weeks in rehabilitation, learning basic tasks: eating, brushing teeth, showering, getting dressed, walking and climbing stairs.

The bullet had shattered her clavicle, broke two ribs, grazed her spine, causing a spinal cord injury, she said, adding that she underwent surgeries and is still under treatment for it. Since this event, she described not being able to play sports that she loved, returning to her job and walking long distances. Her body, she said, has also lost the ability to keep itself warm or cool according to the temperature outside.

"My life has changed its path entirely," Ossege said.

 

Quote

Reina St. Juliana described the things she had hoped to do with her sister, Hana, as they grew up: go thrifting together, help each other remember songs, go on walks and speak at each other's weddings.

"Instead of speaking at her wedding, I spoke at her funeral. Instead of fishtailing her hair for a game, I curled her hair in a casket," she said.

In her victim impact statement ahead of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley's sentencing, the older sister spoke about pushing off getting a driving license since her 14-year-old sister would never be able to ride in the passenger seat and having a dull house where "the empty seat at the dining table is the loudest silence I've ever heard."

She also read her mother's victim impact statement.

"Now in my daily life, whenever I see a pair of sisters, I'm sad. When I see other siblings getting along, I'm sad. When I see other mothers and daughters, I'm sad. When I see other families having a good time, I'm sad. When I see others her age having fun, I'm sad. Every day, every moment, every experience, I think of Hana and I'm sad," the statement said.

"I know that the days my eyes are dry will never come," she added. "This is how we will continue to be — surviving, not living."

 

Quote

Ahead of giving his victim impact statement, Craig Shilling, father of 17-year-old Michigan school shooting victim Justin Shilling, told the judge it was the hardest thing he ever had to write, and that the court would hear a condensed version of what he has been working on for months.

"These days, there's not much happiness in the holidays. Birthdays and those milestone days don't carry the special feeling they always used to," he said.

"There are no words to accurately describe the pain we feel on a daily basis. I have PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and struggle most days to even get out of bed. Anxiety, stress, sleepless nights and uncontrolled emotional heartbreak makes even the simplest, most normal things difficult," Craig Shilling said.

"The things I used to find enjoyment in are no longer reliable in that respect," he added, saying activities like golfing, kayaking, bowling and fishing are few of the many things he used to do with his son.

As his voice shook, Craig Shilling said the pain is debilitating, no matter how much you prepare or "how strong you think you are or how big your support network is."

"Time slows down and everything around you speeds up. It's been two years already, but feels much like yesterday. I still find myself waiting up for him to get home for work so we can get a few minutes to chat," he said.

He asked the judge to sentence shooter Ethan Crumbley to the harshest penalty possible — life in prison without parole.

"His blatant lack of human decency and disturbing thoughts on life in general do not in any way warrant a second chance. My son doesn't get a second chance, and neither should he," Craig Shilling said.

 

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Posted
15 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

@fattyflattie is getting HARD-R just thinking about those babies.

Not true. But it does make me hard af knowing no matter what you do, how much money you donate, or who you vote for, the only changes to my sacrosanct hobby will be it might get even less restrictive. 

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Posted

sacrosanct

adjective

sac·ro·sanct ˈsa-krō-ˌsaŋ(k)t 

1

: most sacred or holy : INVIOLABLE

2

: treated as if holy : immune from criticism or violation

Posted
1 hour ago, royiv said:

sacrosanct

adjective

sac·ro·sanct ˈsa-krō-ˌsaŋ(k)t 

1

: most sacred or holy : INVIOLABLE

2

: treated as if holy : immune from criticism or violation

I like this one better. 

sac·ro·sanct

/ˈsakrōˌsaNG(k)t,ˈsakrōˌsaNGk(t)/
 
adjective
  1. (especially of a principle, place, or routine) regarded as too important or valuable to be interfered with.
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Posted
2 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

Not true. But it does make me hard af knowing no matter what you do, how much money you donate, or who you vote for, the only changes to my sacrosanct hobby will be it might get even less restrictive. 

Pea dick’s cum bubble bursts, and a maggot crawls off, one day to become a pro gun water-head. /Bill Hicks approximately 

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Posted
3 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

r/Firearms - Ruger why did you think this was a good idea?

That sure is something.

Hard-r, huh?  Not looking for the subtle dog whistles anymore, I guess ...

god-bless-white-america.gif

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Posted (edited)

The copyright on that was 2009 and you can find a few message board comments on it from back then, gee I wonder what happened in 2009 that could have prompted Ruger to roll out a “hard r line”…

 

 

Edited by Covri
Posted
21 minutes ago, Covri said:

The copyright on that was 2009 and you can find a few message board comments on it from back then, gee I wonder what happened in 2009 that could have prompted Rutgers to roll out a “hard r line”…

 

 

A decent argument can be made that Obama really did break this country.

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Posted
1 hour ago, YGIFS said:

Do people talk about caliber like they talk about ED dosage?  Asking for a guy with a 8” cock and a locked up pistol.  

8 inches?? That's bottom third for Surly dude. I'd keep that to myself 

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Posted
44 minutes ago, Doc Sam Beckett said:

8 inches?? That's bottom third for Surly dude. I'd keep that to myself 

Well, it's like your mom (true to Surly form) used to say..."I only bang 8's!" 

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Posted

You guys are going to love this!

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/us/guns-disposal-recycling.html

Quote

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.

 
 

Some public officials and gun safety advocates said they had no clue this was happening. The Rev. Chris Yaw, whose Episcopal church outside Detroit has sponsored buybacks with local officials, said in an interview that he was “aghast and appalled” when told by a reporter how the process works.

“It tells me that our society is set up really well for buying and selling guns,” he said, “but it’s not set up very well for disposing of them.”

 
 

Seized firearms arrayed on a light gray surface, each with a tag and atop a brown paper envelope with writing on the outside. Guns seized or recovered by the police in Flint, Mich., displayed in 2020.Credit...Jake May/The Flint Journal, via Associated Press

 
 


This examination of the gun disposal industry reveals a hidden aspect of the government’s role in promoting the proliferation of guns and a gun culture that has divided the country. The New York Times has previously reported how federal officials and legislators have facilitated the spread of ammunition and favorable laws.

The industry relies on contracts with public agencies at the local, state and federal levels, and is subsidized by tax dollars and charitable donations that pay for buybacks. Governments arguably could be seen as complicit in bad outcomes — if a recycled assault weapon from Flint, for example, was later used in a deadly shooting — but it would be difficult to even know that: The salvaged gun parts typically would not include a serial number that could be traced.

 
 

A Missouri business called Gunbusters, which patented a “firearms pulverizer,” was responsible for dealing with the Flint weapons. The company says it has taken in more than 200,000 firearms over the past decade from about 950 police agencies around the country, from Baton Rouge, La., to St. Louis to Hartford, Vt.

At least a half-dozen other firms do similar work. LSC Destruction of Nevada says it has disposed of guns for police departments in Minneapolis and San Antonio, while New England Ballistic Services of Massachusetts has worked with Boston and towns in Rhode Island.

Gun auction websites have thousands of listings for parts kits, and even complete firearms, offered by firms that contrac with law enforcement agencies to handle disposals. Gunbusters and its five licensees across the country, for example, recently averaged more than $90,000 a week in combined online sales of hundreds of disassembled guns from government clients.

This little-known but profitable corner of the firearms economy exists because the approved method of destroying a gun contains a loophole that has been exploited.

 
 

The Rev. Chris Yaw, wearing all black except for an orange scarf, sits in a church pew. The Rev. Chris Yaw, whose Detroit-area church has worked on buybacks, said he was “aghast and appalled” to learn what happens to the collected guns.Credit...Emily Elconin for The New York Times

 
 


To be able to say a gun is destroyed, disposal companies crush or cut up a single piece that federal law classifies as a firearm: the receiver or frame that anchors the other components and contains the required serial number. The businesses can then sell the remaining parts as a kit: barrel, trigger, grip, slide, stock, springs — essentially the entire gun, minus the regulated piece.

 
 

Police agencies and disposal companies say they are following guidelines set by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. While the guidelines, posted on the A.T.F. website, show illustrations of whole guns being cut into pieces with an acetylene torch, they also say that an “acceptable method” is to destroy just the receiver or frame.

The companies, for their part, say that if public officials want the whole gun destroyed, they must pay for it.

 

“Our services are free for law enforcement agencies,” said Scott Reed, president of Gunbusters. “If we can’t cover our costs by selling parts, then we charge them.”

Only about two percent of Gunbusters’ clients pay to have the full firearm destroyed, he said. Federal agencies, including the Secret Service, are among them.

 
 

Mr. Reed likened the recycling of parts to “organ donation,” allowing collectors to repair or maintain their firearms: “The people who are happiest with us are those who need parts for old guns that just aren’t made anymore.”

 
 

10gunbusters-01-zhqg-mobileMasterAt3x.jp 10gunbusters-03-zhqg-mobileMasterAt3x.jp 10gunbusters-qtmp-mobileMasterAt3x.jpg?a 10gunbusters-04-zhqg-mobileMasterAt3x.jp Some of the parts kits made from firearms sent to Gunbusters for destruction. A background check is usually not required to purchase them.Credit...Gunbusters

But while the parts kits have legitimate uses, they could also further the spread of so-called ghost guns when paired with an untraceable receiver or frame, said Nicholas Suplina, a senior lawyer with Everytown for Gun Safety. The number of do-it-yourself ghost guns turning up in violent crimes has surged, made possible by unfinished components — prefabricated metal pieces that need welding and drilling — that are not serialized, and often do not require a background check when purchased separately.

“These parts kits provide the necessary elements to complete a gun by a person who couldn’t pass a background check,” Mr. Suplina said.

Both Everytown and the Giffords Law Center, another national gun safety group, said they had not realized that “destroyed” firearms were being sold in this way.

 
 

In their marketing, gun disposal companies play up their no-cost services, often leaving out the information about parts-selling, which appears in the written contracts. Elected officials rely on their police departments — which typically look to save money — to make the arrangements, and they give perfunctory approval with little or no discussion. In interviews, some officials acknowledged that they had not understood the process, but were reluctant to speak publicly now because they had made inaccurate claims for years about guns supposedly being destroyed.

In Spartanburg, S.C., where a taxpayer-funded buyback in May collected 128 firearms that were given to Gunbusters, local news stories reported that they would be destroyed at no cost to the city. Police Chief Alonzo Thompson said he was aware that Gunbusters sold most of the parts rather than crushing everything, but felt that was acceptable as long as the company complied with A.T.F. regulations.

“But I understand the concerns and those who might feel they’re less than informed,” he said, adding, “My priority is to remove these guns from our community.”

Flint, like other Michigan municipalities, transfers its unwanted firearms to the state police for destruction. What Flint officials did not know was that the Michigan State Police was Gunbusters’ biggest client.

“The city was unaware that weapons were not being incinerated,” Flint officials said in a statement when told by a reporter about the company’s destruction method, adding that they would seek to clarify the disposal arrangement.

 
A gloved hand places a gun component into a boxy white metal contraption stamped “American Pulverizer Company” and “Gunbusters.” Gunbusters says it has taken in more than 200,000 firearms over the past decade from about 950 police agencies.Credit...Neeta Satam for The New York Times
Red vs. Blue

The disposal of unwanted guns has emerged as yet another front in America’s culture wars.

Red state lawmakers have pushed to prohibit law enforcement agencies from destroying firearms in their inventories, while also discouraging gun buybacks, calling them ineffective and a waste of money. At least nine states have laws mandating that the police sell seized guns or trade in their own when buying new ones. Gunbroker, the largest online firearms marketplace, lists hundreds of former police service weapons for sale.

At the same time, officials in mostly blue cities have stopped police departments from selling or trading in old or confiscated weapons, pointing to cases where the firearms resurfaced in crimes. They have also embraced buybacks, using tax dollars and charitable donations to pay citizens to turn in firearms.

Amid the rancor, entrepreneurs large and small have found a way to profit.

Jeff McCabe, a house painter with a firearms license in Orange County, Calif., started a side business, California Gun Services, to resell weapons. His buyback website says its goal is “to limit the number of cheap, dangerous or unwanted guns in our local community” by destroying them — unless they have historical “or significant monetary value.”

Mr. McCabe said that navigating the politicized environment around guns can be challenging. On one hand, he said, “there’s those, ‘You can pry it out of my dead cold hands’ Republicans,” and on the other, “there’s the liberals who think nobody should ever own a firearm.”

 
 

“I’m trying to be somewhere in the middle,” he added.

Other businesses deal only with law enforcement agencies. Gunbusters, the biggest of them, was established a decade ago by a retired St. Louis police officer. The company’s “pulverizer” crushes a firearm and videotapes the process so the police have a record.

 

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