imported post
The last stolen gun I found... I could not locate the owner since they had moved. Because the status was stolen I kept the gun and a few years later sent it up for destruction.
Is this standard operating procedure for ALL stolen items of just guns? Something tells me that if a diamond ring was missing/stolen and you couldn't find the rightful owner, you'd give it to the person who mistakenly bought it rather than destroying it. Am I right? If so, why the difference?
The difference is because a firearm has to be transferred from licensed manufacturer to licensed wholesaler to licensed dealer to purchaser, except in a sale from one non-dealer owner to a non-dealer purchaser. Police departments are not 01 dealersand thus cannot log in a firearm that they would later log out.
Neither are they a non-dealer owner of the firearm - remember, they confiscated it from you when it was discovered to be reported as stolen from somebody who is not you.
When the person who reported it as stolen is located, they are run through NICS to verify they are still legally allowed to posses a firearm. The only thing they do not have to do is fill out another 4473 form - again because the police are not an 01 dealer and thus not required or allowed by BATFE to mess with 4473's.
If the person who reported the firearm as stolen cannot be located, or flunks NICS, the police department cannot legally do ANYTHING with it except destroy it. They have no legal authority to transfer it to anybody, and they have no legal authority to convert it to LE use and put it into their inventory. (As a side note, some of the firearms they confiscate as evidence of being used in the commission of a crime may legallybe converted to LE use and placed in the PD's inventory.)
Diamond rings, on the other hand, are not controlled by BAFTE regulations or other federal/state law restricting how & to whom they can be sold/traded (as in exchanged)/or given away. In fact there are laws on the books in Virginia on exactly how, and when, the finder of unclaimed lost property can assume ownership of the item(s).
Too bad the feds (and following their lead, the locals) have created the fiction that large sums of cash found laying about are not only evidence of crimes, but one of the possible perpetrators of said crimes. The cash is actually charged and a hearing is held in court to allow the cash to show why it should not be charged with the crime. If later convicted, the cash is split between the state & local PD (if the locals "found" it), or the feds get it all if they found it. Maybe on my next visit to a prison I will see $100,000.00, having been sentenced to 20 years, pumping iron on the exercise yard. :lol:
stay safe.
skidmark
