Son of a Gun: What to Do with a Legacy of (Unwanted) Firearms

Americans own nearly million guns Five of them were not long ago lying on my parents living room floor in Dallas Two revolvers looked like props from a s cop movie A pistol with a perforated barrel looked like it was from a space opera There was a Field Stream-worthy shotgun and a semi-automatic rifle right out of a mass shooting This collection of firearms will likely be my responsibility when my father is gone I might not like it but I may not have a choice Last September he drafted a gun trust and named me as trustee When I advised him I wasn t particularly interested in taking responsibility for a few of these weapons he paused and thought for a minute There s no reason not to keep all of them he mentioned There isn t Everyone I know has a relationship with guns They re ingrained in American beliefs our movies books and politics The Bill of Rights devoted words to the right to bear firearms but not one to the right to vote Guns have put food on American tables and defended families I ve enjoyed shooting clays with a friend Over the last sparse decades however the moral weight and awful responsibility of these weapons has grown heavier When I was in seventh grade a classmate of mine took his life with a shotgun Weeks before I graduated high school two young men rampaged through Columbine High School killing people These tragedies haven t stopped Suicide rates of American kids between the ages of and have soared percent since Half of the time it s with a gun The frequency of school shootings has quadrupled since the s I ve lived a little over four decades now In that time there s been a dramatic decrease in murder and crime overall Yet the nature of deadly gun violence has grown increasingly heinous Baby Boomers though are a different generation They own more guns per person than any other demographic group As a great number of begin to think about their legacies their guns will have to go somewhere My -year-old father s plans suddenly include me but I m not alone Survey estimates suggest that more than a quarter of gun owners have acquired arms not by purchase but as gifts or inheritances AS THE TRUSTEE OF FIVE GUNS AND A SILENCER I WILL GET TO DECIDE THEIR FATE UPON MY DAD S DEATH In December I attended the Original Fort Worth Gun Show which bills itself as the largest in Texas to hear from collectors about their own plans Between tables of muskets Safari-sized ammo and AR- s several informed me of family members ecstatic about inheriting their collections Others would sigh glance at the ground and confess the interest in their collection ended with them One had a solid plan Ron who gave only his first name pawed a tin of Copenhagen as he described me about his advanced heart affection After he dies he stated he has arranged for his collection to go straight to auction His daughter won t have to deal with it Back in my parents home I know these guns won t just be carted off or disappear They re real wood and metal Heavy smooth and cold The shotgun s silver receiver gleams in the living room light Unlike an old couch that can be tossed to the curb these items can be lethal if mishandled Glaring at the Smith Wesson M P one of the most of popular semi-auto rifles I don t know how to do even the simplest things like verify it s unloaded or check the safety Couple that with a danger affecting similar models where it s practicable to experience multiple discharges without pulling the trigger If I were to handle this weapon it s feasible nothing would happen Or I could become one of the Americans accidentally injured by a firearm each year The M P also happens to be the same model used in mass shootings in Aurora Colorado Highland Park Illinois and Parkland Florida Particular legacy The odd thing is aside from the shotgun passed down from my great-grandfather these guns don t have sentimental value to me My father and I never went shooting or hunting together Although I knew there was a revolver somewhere in our family s home he never exhibited it to me or taught me how to shoot it Instead we spent hours casting fly lines in the middle of rippling trout streams which is about as far from semi-automatic as you can get Rather his collection was amassed largely in the last decade and propelled by a distrust in authorities He has plenty of company The sharpest spikes in gun purchases have occurred after mass shootings and precisely when talk of new gun laws grows the loudest Yet it wasn t gun regulation that soared after these tragedies but thoughts prayers and profits for companies like Smith Wesson My father s political announcement comes with a gun trust a legal tool that has gained popularity among particular gun owners in the last several years and something I knew nothing about A trust is created whenever it s in writing and it has something of value attorney Robert Ray informed me The something of value could be anything from real estate to a gun collection The trust becomes the owner of the assets Trustees like me manage those assets As the trustee of five guns and a silencer I will get to decide their fate upon my dad s death I started looking at my options It wasn t long before I identified Gatling Gun Rescue out of Dallas which advertises its free gun removal institution on its website Have Gun We excursion Graham who requested I only use his first name is a licensed private detective and firearms professional who runs the operation He collects unwanted guns and provides a receipt of transfer no questions inquired Widows and avid shooters short on space make up plenty of of his online queries During the COVID- pandemic Graham explained me Specific people thought any stranger with a -degree fever was going to break down their front door When such apocalyptic visions proved more cough than bite a late spike in gun purchases led to buyers remorse He gets those inquiries as well Graham noted he makes no money from the operation Instead the roughly unwanted firearms he re-homes each year have ended up with groups like the Boy Scouts and in at least one museum Local police are another option Not every department will accept firearms though multiple do including the Dallas and Plano police in my area But what happens to them afterward can be opaque at best A CBS examination discovered several North Texas police agencies had sent surrendered firearms to a contractor for what they thought was destruction Instead only specific of the guns were destroyed while others were salvaged for parts and resold as repair kits Auction I doubt the collection would garner much interest Resell The thought of walking into a gun store with a circumstance of weapons to sell makes me feel uneasy As a gun-loving generation passes we re facing a wave of unwanted weapons For several there are just too a large number of to house For others there s merely no interest As one collector explained me at the gun show None of us has an expiration date on his wrist But rest assured hard decisions are coming When you get older my father observed after I had first voiced my concerns about inheriting his gun collection in January you realize you spend your life acquiring things that majority of people don t want Such an admission was as cathartic to me as it was haunting What was I collecting that my daughter might be left to deal with years from now The post Son of a Gun What to Do with a Legacy of Unwanted Firearms appeared first on The Texas Observer