Maryland cops won’t sell their used guns

Why would anyone who sells an item think they are morally responsible for something someone else does with it?

  • Maryland’s Baltimore County police department will not sell back used handguns to manufacture or dealers.
  • Because they won’t sell the guns back, taxpayers will have to fork out an extra $700,000 for the new guns.

One way police departments keep costs down is to “trade in” used guns to manufactures in return for new guns. This is very common for departments all across the country, and in some cases, departments end up paying very little or nothing for the new guns.

Some gun-control activists in law-enforcement positions in and around Baltimore, question the ethics of trading in handguns that may – God forbid – get into the hands of the public.

In 2011, Baltimore police similarly said they would not sell a stockpile of 9 mm handguns back to Glock, citing moral concerns. The move cost the city more than $500,000 in rebates.

“If we put guns back on the street and they’re used in a crime, do we bear some responsibility for putting them back into circulation?” retired Baltimore Deputy Police Commissioner Bert F. Shirey said at the time.

So now the issue has come up again, and since it was a possibility one of the guns sold by a Maryland department was used in a 2008 double homicide in Oklahoma, the department is having a big moral dilemma.

The logic here is totally flawed. Does the Baltimore County police avoid selling their used vehicles because someone could buy it, drive drunk and kill someone? Should the manufacture of a baseball bat feel they are morally responsible for someone that beats the crap out of – or kills – someone with a bat?

Police say a wealthy Connecticut man who viciously beat his wife with a baseball bat told them he “just lost it.”

Michael DeMaio, 55, was charged with attempted murder after he attacked his wife, Dianne DeMaio, following an argument Tuesday evening, CBS reported.

According to the Connecticut Post, the woman told him she was leaving him before the attack.

The police have not let us know if an “assault” bat was used. We don’t yet know the make or model of the bat, or even if it was wood or aluminum.

Can we please introduce some common sense here? If Baltimore County went forward and sold their guns to a dealer or traded them back to the manufacture, when EVERY one of those guns would be eventually sold through a dealer with an Federal Firearms License (FFL), and EVERY buyer would have to go through a background check.

Insert your own reference to the ATF’s Fast and Furious gun-running program here, and then share this post via Facebook, Twitter and via email.

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Steve McGough

Steve's a part-time conservative blogger. Steve grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Washington, D.C. and the Bahamas. He resides in Connecticut, where he’s comfortable six months of the year.

6 Comments

  1. Dimsdale on September 25, 2013 at 12:30 pm

    It’s not the guns they sell back to honest citizens that should be bothersome; it is the guns that they give to drug lords/gangs in Mexico that have the highest moral worry.?? Fast and Furious anyone?? Or did the media manage to bury that one too?
    ?
    I am sure Glock doesn’t? care; they make more sales of new guns, so the refusal of the cops to sell the guns means absolutely nothing, other than the second tier users have a smaller pool to draw from, and hence, pay more.



  2. bien-pensant on September 25, 2013 at 1:01 pm

    A ready parallel to this situation is any used police equipment. If Maryland?s Baltimore County police department wanted to be consistent, not hypocritical, they would scrap all of their used police cars, trucks, vans, scooters, radios, whatever.
    If they did that, then there would be a definite public outcry about waste, recycling, etc.
    ?



  3. Eric on September 25, 2013 at 8:52 pm

    How stupid does one have to be to go to work for the Baltimore Police Dept.? ?I’m guessing a room temperature IQ would do it!?



  4. SeeingRed on September 26, 2013 at 8:21 am

    PC is hard at work in Baltimore.?
    If the citizens of Baltimore accept the penalty of higher costs because of decisions like this, they deserve it.? But one gets the feeling that the people pulling th eliberal, PC lever (DEMOCRAT) aren’t the same ones that end up funding the new guns.?



    • bien-pensant on September 26, 2013 at 2:09 pm

      It’s probably a grant from the federal government, which means that it is from you and me and all of the others pulling the wagon.
      Let me guess. Baltimore County and Baltimore City are heavily democrat? Wild guess here!
      (You know, the wagon is getting heavier by the day and harder to pull. I don’t mind so much being in the traces, but I do hope that the darn wagon doesn’t run me over if I miss a step.)
      ?



  5. PatRiot on September 30, 2013 at 6:26 pm

    They should ask their state lagislators if they feel guilty?because they prey on addicts of alcohol and tobacco with their sin taxes.? And if they feel?doubly guilty because they?never ensure that money gets to substatnce abuse programs.



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