Ever wonder what happens to all the guns collected in those highly publicized gun buy-back and turn-in programs?  Me too.  The usual party line is that they’re destroyed.  You know, for the safety of the community.  For the children.  For something.  Dunno about you, but I’ve always been skeptical that they’re all tossed into the smelter.  And in at least one Illinois community, a (now former) peace officer apparently couldn’t sit by and watch all those mohaskas to go to waste…

Instead, officer Daniel Ryan, a Clarendon Hills cop, helped himself to some of the booty collected through the city’s unwanted gun turn-in program.  Five of them, to be exact.  You can’t carry in Illinois, but officer Ryan sure carried a few home.

Among the loot were an Ithaca 1911, a Mossy 590 and a Smith Airweight.  You can almost understand why Danny boy would hate to see perfectly nice heaters thrown on the scrap heap. Almost.

Authorities were led to Ryan after the state’s attorney’s office received an anonymous tip in February and worked with the FBI to investigate the disappearance of guns from the Clarendon Hills Police Department evidence room.

Evidence room? Probably pending a trip to the shredder, right?  A call to the department to find out how guns from the turn-in program are disposed of wasn’t returned.

According to the department’s press release, “none of the weapons stolen were involved in any crimes and were obtained through a weapons “turn in” program.” No, I’m sure officer Ryan planned to hang on to these heaters for his own personal use.

Kind of makes you wonder what happens to all the other guns collected by other departments that aren’t accounted for in department evidence rooms.  Do they track them all they way to their final resting place?  Do cops get first dibs on the choice stuff?  The world may never know.

 

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14 COMMENTS

  2. Evidence room? Probably pending a trip to the shredder, right?

    I’ve written before about my biggest objection to gun “buy backs”: my suspicion that unscrupulous (to put it politely) organizations like Mayors Against Illegal Guns use them to “pad” the “crime gun” statistics.These “buy backs” almost all involve the police, with the guns, therefore, going into “police custody.” That, in turn, almost certainly means that they’re traced, and end up as a “crime gun” statistic, whether they were ever involved in any crime (much less any violent crime), or not.And MAIG releases another “study.”

  4. A Chicago police officer is corrupt. In other news, authorities detained a bear today that has allegedly been defecating in one of our national forests, and the Pope stunned the world by announcing that he is, in fact, a Catholic.

  5. Personally I couldn’t stand by and watch perfectly good guns being destroyed either. The wonder is he only took 5!

  6. I have a friend that works at the steel mill where they take the guns in this area to melt them down. He has made a few vids of this for me because I have wondered for some time about it. But the vids show the guns roll up in the truck and are dump out and dropped into very hot molten steel. There are always some very nice guns it there that sure I would love to own. In this area all guns taken in are melted down. This is what I want stopped. by law you must destroy guns that have been used in a crime, muder, armed robbery and any with shots fired. But a lot of guns are turned in from people who just dont want them in the house. Others were left guns from family that have passed away and dont want them. I think these should be auctioned off to people in the county. the county gets the money for whatever they need it for. Im tired of seeing great guns lost forever Because no wanted to try something like this.

    I’m Done ranting sorry

  7. Some of these news articles are [over the top] The man made a bad decision so you want to hang him for it? He’s a man ! We all make mistakes and he probably served that Police dept well . One mistake and people stand ready to condem. You’ve got it all figured out don’t you? Well we are all human. That’s the media , give them dirty laundry because that’s what sells. People live for dirt because their own lives are so uneventful.

    • I think it is the reason that he is a cop AND he might have been selling stolen firearms to criminals (who else would risk purchasing them that way?) that gets people all riled up. A lot of people have a trust in the public offices such as PD, Fire and EMTs. To see them fail is sad. To see that this is one guy in many more that could be out there is terrifying. Yes, he is just a man. He did just make a mistake but it is a doosy.

    • For me it would depend on why he was stealing them. Did he just want to add a few nice ones to his private collection? Yeah, as someone that really appreciates firearms, I can understand that (don’t agree with it, but can understand it). Was he taking them to sell to criminals to make money? Toss his butt in jail! Was he selling them to other cops as “throw down” weapons to incriminate innocent people after wrongly shooting them and killing them? (been known to happen in big city departments) If yeah to that, then throw the guy in general population in state prison for the rest of his life..

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