Since 2013, nearly 5,000 guns have been destroyed in Tucson, Ariz. The destruction has come at the hands of the Tucson Police Department, which, rather than selling off the firearms turned in by citizens or seized from crime investigations, has elected instead to dispose of them permanently. Roughly 86 percent of the retrieved guns over the the last three-and-a-half years have been destroyed.
Now, one lawmaker is taking issue with that. Republican state Rep. Mark Finchem argues that the city is violating a 2013 state law that requires the sale of otherwise legal guns obtained by law enforcement agencies. Finchem has asked Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich to intervene, and Brnovich is investigating the complaint.
NRA Board member Todd Rathner sided with Finchem. “They are willfully disobeying state law,” Rathner noted. “They are making determinations based on a politicized description of a firearm.”
