Over half a million dollars worth of handguns were melted by the Honolulu Police Department. The Police Department along with Mayor Kirk Caldwell decided that they could not sell these guns to law abiding citizens for fear they would end up on the streets of Honolulu.
Some 2,300 Smith & Wesson 9 mm handguns, including at least 200 that are brand-new and in unopened boxes, were issued to the city’s police department. But with the 2,200-member force upgrading to lighter and less expensive Glock 17s, the guns were set to be permanently holstered. While it is customary throughout the country for departments to auction the guns to law-abiding citizens, including the police who once carried them, or donate them to another department, Honolulu opted to destroy them.
Brand new, still in the box, guns were destroyed! Guns paid for by tax dollars, melted because of a liberal, gun control agenda. Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation said it is “the height of anti-gun stupidity and will not stop one criminal from getting a weapon.”
Two hundred of the guns were brand new and could have been donated to other departments or sold to police officers with the proceeds going to help infrastructure, training or any other need the city had. Yet the money that could have been generated was in a very real sense melted away into the same oblivion as the guns.
Selling the guns, with mandatory background checks to ensure they were only purchased by legal owners, could have netted the city $575,000, according to Hawaii News Now. Several police officers reportedly were interested in buying old service weapons for personal use, and the department has previously sold phased-out weapons to its staff, but this time opted to melt them down two weeks ago.
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