Catherine Rusoff
Law enforcement agencies often trade your used guns to a gun dealer in exchange for credit toward your next purchase, similar to the way cell phone companies offer discounts on new phones in exchange for older models.
William Brooks, a board member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said resales are essential for many departments to afford gun upgrades. “Decisions regarding the trade in old police service weapons should be left to individual communities and their police chiefs,” he said. “We believe that if a community decides to destroy old firearms when new ones are purchased, they should commit with the same fervor to fully funding the purchase of new firearms when their police chiefs request it.”
Once sold by a department, weapons enter a secondary market where they can be resold to the public or other dealers. By the time they appear at crime scenes, weapons may have been stolen, traded or resold multiple times with little documentation. Sometimes they even have the department name emblazoned on the side.
Michael Sierra-Arévalo, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin and author of “The Danger Imperative: Violence, Death, and the Soul of Policing,” said the swaps allow police to avoid public scrutiny because they can buy new weapons. without having to get budget approval from city leaders.
“There are certainly other mechanisms for acquiring weapons. You can get a line item in the city budget, but that can bring all kinds of political hurdles to overcome,” Sierra-Arévalo said. “So I’m not surprised that when someone comes along and says they can help the police prevent all this, the police agree.”
The Baltimore Police Department weathered public criticism in 2008 after one of its commercially available service weapons was used to murder two children returning home from a sleepover in Oklahoma.
At a news conference in April, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said police officers have the opportunity to purchase their service weapons for personal use before the weapons are exchanged for credit. If an officer purchases a gun and wants to resell it later, he or she must first return it to the department.
“We know there are some issues across the country,” Scott said. “For BPD, we are extremely diligent about what happens when we take away guns.”
The Baltimore County Police Department — which is separate from the Baltimore City Police Department — takes a different approach. In 2013, he traded his antique weapons to a firearms dealer, but under the terms of the agreement, important parts of the weapons were destroyed, a spokesperson said.
“Throughout my entire career, I have felt that police departments should not be dedicated to returning more guns to our society,” said James Johnson, who served as Baltimore County police chief from 2007 to 2017.
In 2023, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a requirement that the Sheriff’s Department destroy firearms it no longer needs. Board Supervisor Janice Hahn said she hopes the decision can serve as a model for the rest of the country. “We who are at the local level must do what we can to keep guns out of the hands of criminals,” she said. “We can all wait all day for Congress to pass common-sense laws to prevent gun violence.”
Some police departments argued that because they were reselling to gun shops and other federally licensed gun dealers, they were not technically providing firearms directly to the public.
In an email, a spokesman for the Fort Worth Police Department, Buddy Calzada, said it would be “inaccurate” to report that the agency resells guns to the public.
He then explained how the department resells guns: “In rare cases, the department has exchanged small quantities of firearms with the dealer from whom the department purchased them and received credit for newer firearms,” Calazada wrote. “It is important to note that any guns sold by a dealer are only sold to qualified buyers who have passed federal background checks.”
Internal records show the department has resold more than 1,000 guns to two dealers over the past 10 years. The department declined an interview request.
Appealing to gun buyers
Using sales records obtained by CBS News from dozens of police departments, reporters identified about 50 gun dealers whose business includes buying and reselling retired police weapons. Many are self-described police supply companies that also sell flashlights, handcuffs and other law enforcement tools.
Police gun supply companies that buy and sell firearms must hold a federal gun dealer license, which allows them to sell guns to the public. The license opens them to ATF inspections, but internal records show that the agency has long been toothless and conciliatory, mostly issuing warnings rather than serious punishments when its inspectors find drug traffickers breaking the law.
To encourage better practices among suppliers competing for lucrative public contracts, some California cities have passed measures to impede local law enforcement from doing business with arms dealers who were cited for serious violations during inspections. But in most of the country, there is no requirement that law enforcement authorities consider a dealer’s compliance record when awarding contracts.
Lindsay Nichols, policy director at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said police have a moral and ethical responsibility to only do business with gun dealers who follow best practices. “There are many conditions that an agency could impose on a gun store as a condition of receiving their weapons,” she said. “There are a lot of gun stores out there. You don’t need to sell to any specific company.”
ATF inspection records show that one of the most prolific buyers of used police guns has a long history of violating federal regulations.
LC Action Police Supply, based in San Jose, California, purchased more than 3,000 guns from 11 different police agencies between 2005 and 2023, including the gun involved in the homicide of Cameron Brown, according to records obtained by CBS News.
During the same period, the ATF cited LC Action for 30 violations of federal firearms laws, including failing to conduct background checks and report suspicious gun sales, records show. An ATF inspector pushed to revoke LC Action’s license to sell guns after the company was cited for six violations in 2005, but the recommendation was rejected by agency superiors.
The ATF inspected LC Action four more times between 2009 and 2019, finding many of the same violations. The agency allowed the company to keep its license to sell firearms.
LC Action did not respond to multiple phone and email requests for comment. When a CBS News Los Angeles reporter and photographer visited the company’s retail store and asked to speak to a representative, they were told to leave.
An ATF spokesperson said the agency does not comment on specific cases, but that, generally speaking, the outcome of any licensing action involving a gun dealer depends on the underlying facts and circumstances. The spokesperson added that ATF policies and procedures are designed to maximize public safety by ensuring that federal law is administered fairly and consistently.
In 2021, the Biden administration ordered the ATF implement a zero tolerance policy on offending arms dealers, a step that led to a increase in license revocations.
Used police guns are popular among gun buyers because they are relatively inexpensive and generally in good condition. They also tend to have high ammunition capacity and are designed to hold large to medium caliber cartridges.
Alyssa pointer for tracking
Larry Brown Jr., firearms instructor and president of Bass Reeves Gun Club in Atlanta, said he bought a used police gun because it was already equipped with glow-in-the-dark sights and a special trigger that made it easier to shoot, saving money on upgrades.
“The price is right,” Brown said. “Police exchanges are usually better equipped and improved than what I would buy new. That’s what made me buy what I have.”
The demand for deactivated police weapons has created a thriving market, with gun dealers snapping them up in droves.
“Every now and then I get a call from my reps saying, ‘Hey, we have a bunch of police Glock 22 trades for a great price. ” said Mark Major, owner of 2-Tactical Swords and Defense, an arms dealer in Lithonia, Georgia. “Typically, police switches are made by the department’s armorer. They have some scratches and scuffs from being holstered, but they work.”
Online forums and blogs promoting the benefits of used police guns are common, and there are dozens of YouTube videos featuring gun dealers and enthusiasts showing off large shipments of weapons to attract potential buyers.
In a video posted in April 2024 by AimSurplus, a gun dealer in Monroe, Ohio, one of the store’s employees shows off a cart stacked high with assault weapons, as well as several boxes of pistols and shotguns – all old weapons from the police to be resold on your website.
“You guys love our police exchanges,” says the employee. “And why shouldn’t you? They’re amazing. We just got a whole truckload.”
