To cop the word of a liberal blogger who recently described a pretty vicious Olbermann rant he found particularly moving: heartwrenching.
Once they’ve been seized in crimes, whether after long and ignominious careers or short but violent ones, and once their owners have been prosecuted, the guns must be destroyed, never to be used again.
The New York field office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives periodically takes the guns it gathers to an industrial stretch of road in Westchester County, about 20 miles north of Manhattan, to a scrap metal processing plant in Elmsford, N.Y. There they are chopped up into tiny pieces and sold for about 25 cents a pound.
In the words of federal agents, it is where guns go to die.
Their steel remains are shipped to foundries as near as New Jersey or as far as China, India or Turkey, said Daniel J. Graap, 39, the co-owner of the plant, Brookfield Metal Company. The steel is ultimately used to build, say, iron water pipes, reinforcement bars, chain-link fences or appliances.
“With the destruction of these illegal guns, they’ll eventually be melted down and used as machine parts, piping or whatever the industry can use at this time to help better society,” said William G. McMahon, the special agent in charge who heads the bureau’s New York field division.
“We hope the steel mills use them to manufacture products for legitimate industries,” Mr. McMahon said after 13 guns were destroyed on May 22.
Oh, it needs to be done, since the alternative is to figure out some really burdensome tracking system and I’m obviously not in favor of that. But the “help better society” and “legitimate industries” cracks were really gratuitous. The likelihood of me being stabbed to death, like prominent British anti-gun activist Pat Regan was recently, for example, is pretty low. And because the problem is criminals, not weapons, the UK can continue to outlaw guns, knives, and yes, even big sticks, but they’re still going to have a crime problem.
I’m about due for a few hours on the range.
The war on guns is doomed to failure due to the increase of “fab at home” technology. Benchtop mills can be purchased for around $1000, and the price continues to drop. People will find that they can make their own pretty easily, and then the black market will flourish even more than it already does.
I’d never even heard of fab at home… that’s good to know.