Nearly 5,500 Seized Guns Melted Into Rebar

[SecularMotion]

Sheriff Lee Baca announced the destruction Tuesday of 5,495 weapons confiscated from criminals in Los Angeles County and collected through the “Gifts for Guns” exchange program. Annually, Gerdau Steel Mill, located in Rancho Cucamonga, generously donates its furnace, equipment and personnel to convert these weapons into steel rebar. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Works also donates the trucks every year that transport the weapons to the Mill.

These weapons will be melted into steel reinforcing bar (rebar) and ultimately transformed into elements of construction for upgrades in freeways and bridges in Arizona, California and Nevada. “Our partnership with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department allows us the opportunity to make an impact in our community,” said Jim Crompton, Vice President and General Manager of Gerdau Steel Mill. “We are taking weapons that could destroy our community and repurposing them into steel that will literally help build our community.”

http://scvnews.com/2013/07/30/nearly-5500-seized-guns-melted-into-rebar/

[geckosfeet]

1. Nice. Polymer, steel, aluminum, mim parts and more holding up our bridges.

I am sure the sheriff omitted the metallurgy details so as not to confuse and frighten the public.

Not that many guns are still made of steel anymore. Lots of polymer frames and aluminum slides.

But, any sorting and smelting process in the rebar manufacturing process should clean things up nicely.

[doc03]

2. Before I retired I worked in a steel mill, the Feds would bring several truckloads

of guns, drugs and other contraband for disposal every few months.

[ileus]

3. Sad to see so many firearms that could have been parted out or rehomed.

depending on condition of course....

[Nuclear Unicorn]

5. Could have raised revenue for police, keep violent ofenders locked away a/o safety training

[Nuclear Unicorn]

4. Just for the record. This OP has over a hundred views amid a pro-2A audience

A pro-2A audience that is incessantly accused of sexually fetishizing guns. And yet nearly 5500 objects of their supposed irrepressible desire have been destroyed without so much as a whiff of protest.

I wonder if those who traffic in "guns = sexual fetish" rhetoric do so because they are genuinely wrong but are intellectually honest enough to amend their statements or are they just people who indulge in vile slurs as a means of using vitriol to gain their agenda.

[AtheistCrusader]

6. I figure it's

not my property. People are free to do whatever they want with their property. Including entities like Police departments.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

8. This is a profound psychological insight.

Those who are pro-2A don't feel the need to dictate what occurs in the lives of others.

Yet, those who are anti-2A want to torment their opposites with laws, regulations, denied rental housing, artificially punitive insurance rates, duty-to-be-raped laws and any other form of harassment they can conjure.

[AtheistCrusader]

13. To put on my devil's advocate hat again today...

There is a great deal of injustice out there. People injured, entirely unjustifiably, by bad people with firearms. Careless people. Mean people. Insane people.

I do not share, but I can understand people that associate that injustice with outrage toward the implement those people chose to use. Once you associate that outrage with guns, it then becomes hard to take into account that VAST majority of gun owners are not mean, vindictive, or crazy people.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

14. Yet, no other inanimate object incurs so much abject hatred.

Literally millions of women will be abused by drunken mates tonight compared to maybe a dozen or so harmed by guns in the hands of their mates. Yet, alcohol does not draw the same level of ire. But if a woman menaced by a drunken mate wanted to defend herself these same voices would see her harassed -- if not outright persecuted -- at every turn by a government that has already failed to protect her.

If the claim is "X causes harm" then I cannot understand how Y causing greater harm is a thing to be overlooked. We cannot create a consensus or progress with our society by catering to such things. I hesitate to call the anti-2A reaction "manic" but it certainly seems that way. They might as well be screaming they refuse to confront any other social issues until we pass laws to confront UFO cattle probing.

[AtheistCrusader]

15. Most people drink.

Most moderately, but most do. They have context for how the drug can BE used in moderation.

A large percentage of people in this country have never owned or used a gun. They have no context for how it might be used legitimately, outside the pop culture image.

Again, I'm not saying it is right, it just is. Providing some people context, like taking them to a range, might help.

[sarisataka]

9. just people who indulge in vile slurs as a means of using vitriol to gain their agenda

you are on a roll

[Nuclear Unicorn]

12. RE: vitriol

When I started posting on DU, back when it was DU2, I figured myself an advocate for "reasonable gun control." To be honest, I didn't like guns to the point where the Ick-factor dominated my thinking. Now, I wouldn't call myself a pro-gunner to the point where I carry and I've spent fewer than a dozen days of my entire life shooting.

It was a thing with my Lover Boy. He's ex-Army, adamantly pro-2A and whatnot. I was willing, as a matter of honesty in inquiry, to go shooting. He was very firm about me learning the parts of a pistol, the rules for safe handling and how to safely deal with such things as a misfire, etc. It did much to de-mystify guns.

However, when I conveyed my experiences the vitriol that was heaped upon me is -- well -- you see it every day. The mere act of intellectual curiosity left me branded and subject to the nasty little slurs. "Obey the hive-mind or suffer" was the message that came through loud and clear.

I don't react kindly to such methods. If someone tells me I am not allowed to ask a question I will ask that very question and then a thousand more just like it. The more dishonest and disgusting they become the more determined I am to challenge them. There can be no progress when "Sit down and shut-up because I said so" becomes the law of the land. Stand-up and make noise is the only cure.

[sarisataka]

16. Much like the old adage

whomever raises their voice first has conceded the argument, I think whomever first resorts to childish insults concedes they do not have faith in the strength of their argument.
It is a very poor way to try to accomplish anything besides getting attaboys/girls from those who already support you. The irony is that such action shows the poster to be in fact the caricature they project on their target

[krispos42]

7. Glock, S&W, Ruger, Beretta, Sig, Springfield Armory, Kel-Tec, and others...

...gleefully rub their hands together at the thought of selling brand-new replacement guns to the hungry California market.



Purposely destroying manufactured products that are both legal to own and that have direct replacement copies readily available for legal sale... yay.

[sarisataka]

10. I am amazed at the cheering

from the GC side.

In one action these buy back/melt downs increase demand, reduce supply and create a vacuum the the gun manufacturers are easily able to fill, increase the company's profits and ability to donate to the NRA.

[krispos42]

11. It's like the record-burnings from the Moral Majority era

People buying Satanistic records only to burn them, unopened. Yay...


It would be one thing if there was a massive shift in society, where new-gun sales plummeted and gun owners were selling their guns to dealers with the goal of becoming gun-free. Where there was a massive glut of unwanted guns on the market because demand had dropped through the floor.

But with gun makers working overtime and/or several shifts per day to meet customer demand...


It's like eating a steak to take the beef off the market!

[lastlib]

17. Good Start! (just too small-scale.....)