When the Honolulu, Hawaii Police Department switched from 9mm Smith & Wesson sidearms to the less expensive and lighter Glock 17, the agency and city officials decided that instead of selling the older handguns—some of which were still unused and in boxes—they would be destroyed.
Amount of loss: According to Fox News, the guns were worth possibly $575,000. It’s a figure that left Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Chairman Alan Gottlieb gasping. He contended that the firearms could have been sold to a licensed dealer and subsequently purchased by private citizens in need of less-expensive self-defense tools.
“These guns,” Gottlieb said, “in the hands of lawful civilians could provide an important means of self-defense, especially for low-income people who can’t afford (new guns).”
Not only were the guns not made available for auction to retailers, even Honolulu cops couldn’t buy one for their own use, Fox News reported.
The pistols, some 2,300 in all, were melted down. According to the story, “Mayor Kirk Caldwell and the Honolulu Police Department agreed that they would not allow the guns to be sold to the general public and end up on the streets of Honolulu.”
A spokeswoman for the department said there were no other police agencies interested in the older Smith & Wessons.
But that didn’t make them worthless. However, instead of realizing a potential half-million dollar chunk of revenue for the city and police, anti-gun extremism appears to have completely taken over.
Reacting to the melt-down, Harvey Gerwig, president of the Hawaii Rifle Association, and Bill Richter, president of Lessons in Firearms Education, sent a bristling letter to Mayor Caldwell, condemning the action.
“The reason your office and HPD gave for not selling to the public seemed to be a slight on those legal gun owners who would have purchased them and who supported you during your election,” the letter stated, according to Fox News. “You should be ashamed for suggesting that the good citizens of Hawaii cannot be trusted with buying HPD’s surplus guns for fear of them falling into criminal hands when record numbers of firearms have been bought by those same citizens for the last ten years without any such problems.”
They also noted, “in these times of lean budgets and continual cost cutting to needed city services, to throw away a half a million dollars seems senseless.”
However, Ladd Everitt, spokesman for the anti-gun Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said the meltdown “beats putting those (guns) back on the streets,” as if they were ever on the streets in the first place, outside of a law enforcement holster.
