Waste!

[hso]

I'm not even upset about the government not paying for the labor to dismount the stock or grip, but everything that can be saved and sold simply by pushing pins out for the least profit would save money while this seems like an enormous waste of government money.

 

[Walkalong]

Too bad our government doesn't trust us with them, or at least the non full auto parts at least. Very wasteful indeed. We could raise money to pay down the debt with those. Of wait, never mind, that is logical, and even if they sold them, they wouldn't pay down dept with the money. Politicians! Jeez!

 

[Tirod]

Sheer politics.

Remove the auto sear, drill the hole bigger, huck bolt it, done. No longer auto and requires the legally required effort a semi auto (and more) would to install the sear again.

It would take less people and cheaper, normal shop equipment. Exact same chain of custody. The ATF inspects shops making lowers - remember the Stag incident? So it's not like we are going to see (any more than usually) these getting out into public hands as full auto. (Thieves are stealing them from police cruisers now when agents don't just forget leaving them out.)

All those could go to CMP - at least the ones not shipped to foreign countries as military aid. And if the CMP can refurb a Garand, or 1911, they certainly have the ability to dewat a M16 and then offer it for sale semi auto.

It's politics and restrictive regulation. We have been living with it under the 1934 NFA long enough, there is only one other obstacle in the way of you being able to buy one. The Garand generation. Far too many don't like the M16 and have bought the anti gunners rhetoric hook line and sinker. So when the subject comes up they throw up every anti gun objection possible.

In the meantime the cruncher keeps going shift after shift and your children and grandchildren are deprived what the Greatest Generation enjoys as their "right," the ability to possess and own their generation's battle rifle they served with.

Another "do what we say, not what we do" story. Should there be any wonder why the current generations distrust their elders? Imagine younger shooters at the range listening to the old boys bragging about their score - gun and target - shooting their old faithful battle rifle. While they have to make do with some off brand substitute with no provenance. Who served trained on full auto and given ROA to use it? Who handled them daily but can't be trusted now to even own a civilian version in their own state unless its butchered by regulatory requirements?

Which one had a nationwide ban at one time, supported by the older generation?

This is the direct result of accepting any compromise in our 2A rights - an explicit example of the slippery slope in allowing restrictions and why the very generation which enjoys the fruits of the CMP is also the ones pounding nails in it's coffin.

 

[22250Rem]

Very interesting; thanks for posting.. I knew a lot of old military hardware gets scrapped when it finally gets used up & worn out. It really is a shame that CMP can't do anything with some of that stuff.

 

[Ohio Gun Guy]

Or to support & supply insurgencies to lure our "Enemies" into "Quagmires"....

Rinse and Repeat....

 

[jmr40]

When WW-2 ended millions of dollars worth of stuff, was either destroyed or given to our allies. Sailors pushed trucks, jeeps, planes, and other equipment overboard rather than bring it back. The concern was that all of that surplus equipment being brought back would kill the economy and hurt the chances of returning soldiers finding work.

With the market already flooded with AR rifles, and most of these already well worn out I don't see much interest in the public buying these. The rifles currently being issued are in such bad shape that in many cases soldiers returning to a base hand over their working rifles to the next group before they go out on patrol. Not enough in working condition for each man to keep his own weapon all the time. If these are being crushed they are probably beyond repair.

When other wars have ended there were hundreds of thousands of lightly or un-used weapons sitting in warehouses. That isn't the case today.

 

[dh1633pm]

I don't mind the being destroyed if they are at EOL. But there are many usable parts that could bring in more money to DRMO. Why not sell off everything but the lower and some auto parts. Lower receivers are a dime a dozen anyhow.

 

[hdwhit]

If the government converted them to semi and sold them or simply parted out everything except the lower and its parts, what effect do you think that would have on all the companies making new ARs?

Yeah, we all salivate for government surplus guns and parts and scream waste when we don't get them, but we'd scream just as loud if Ruger and Colt had to lay off employees because the surplus guns were depressing demand.

 

[RPZ]

Government waste. Kill the idiotic NFA, ship them out through CMP.

Or at least salvage the salvageable, and hand them out plus ammo in areas of Middle East to people being slaughtered by ISIS.

 

[FL-NC]

Shameful.

 

[hso]

If the government converted them to semi and sold them

Not a cost effective approach.

 

[Jim Watson]

I bet there are plenty of Americans who would be glad to downconvert surplus to government approved semi only at no cost to taxpayers.

 

[Tirod]

One has to ask how cost effective it has been to sell off Garands, and now, 1911's. Government surplus was available locally, those guns, jeeps, and tanks junked overseas would have been expensive to get back. And we did not want our enemies to use them against us. Pacification was the intent. The war in Europe took down Americans and Brits by Germans who fought long after it was officially over. No idea of how many Soviets were killed.

We aren't talking bringing old worn out guns back to the US, those armories storing US guns are here in the US. It's surplus property the same as desks, computers, and 2 ton trucks - which are sold. If we sell government surplus electronic equipment, which gets wiped and reformatted, it's no bigger expense to at least remove a selector and sear. Garands are known to have the barrels pulled - a much more expensive proposition considering it's a gunsmith level operation to reinstall one by pressing it back into the receiver while simultaneously setting the headspace on a bolt, which may also be new. That's not a quick or low cost labor operation, but done by the CMP to sell it. When the Government hands them over free gratis the CMP seems to be able to do all that and sell them for the current market price quite readily. Buyers are lined up.

We shouldn't ignore the future potential of millions of M9's becoming available. You and I have already funded millions more being shipped overseas, those still in CONUS which will come off service now with the fielding of the M17 should go to the CMP for sale, too. Nothing at all other than inspection and sale is needed. Nobody is discussing it. Should they be scrapped when they could sell to you or me for current market value?

Or is it necessary to see our tax dollars wasted by sending them to the same crusher, which is exactly the premise of the first post?

 

[Rock185]

Couldn't help but notice, that women in the video was flat gleeful about the guns being destroyed. I guess it's good to be happy in one's work.....

 

[v35]

... this seems like an enormous waste of government money.

Isn't that our money?

It's surplus property the same as desks, computers, and 2 ton trucks - which are sold.

That's what I was thinking. How is this any different?

 

[CoalTrain49]

The US left 1B worth of equipment in Iraq.

How does this compare to that? Just a drop in the bucket.

 

[M1key]

Maybe those were Obama-appointed jobs and came with a free iphone.

M

 

[MachIVshooter]

Not a cost effective approach.

When people are happy to pay $400-$500 for an M16A1 parts kit less lower receiver, versus the literal pennies the materials are worth as scrap, I'm gonna have to go with the shredding is pure idiocy. Even the uppers are easily worth $300 on the open market, would take a whole extra 10 seconds to push the pins and put the uppers in a separate pile and turn each "obsolete" M-16 into a couple hundred bucks vs. a nickel's worth of what we call "dirty" scrap (mixed alloys and polymers).

Every time I start to feel any twinge of guilt for the taxes I don't pay due to legitimate write-offs being self-employed vs. employee making similar gross, I remember how wasteful our government is and sleep just fine. Until the powers that be take a moment to actually understand efficiency and economics, I'll continue to laugh when any government entity gripes about lack of funding.

 

[hso]

I pointed out that anything that only required pins to push might be cost effective to remove and package as unmatched parts (uppers, trigger groups, perhaps the pins themselves), but then you have to add the cost of handling, packaging, warehousing, selling and shipping to the overall cost to find out if you can be cost effective in recovering and selling the easily removed portions of an M16.

The other issue to consider with government take off M16 parts is whether the parts are competing with commercially produced equivalent parts. There are problems if surplus undercuts a new manufactured product of similar value. Odds are the pullapart M16 parts would not, but the concern has to be addressed when you might harm a business employing citizens.

 

[medalguy]

Take the lower, push out the pins and drop the internals into a bag, pull the disconnector and auto sear if necessary, remove the upper and then scrap the lower and buttstock etc. The remaining parts could be given as kits to CMP just like the M14 parts kits. That would take about 30 seconds, and there are no serialized parts to inventory. I'd wager CMP could get $200 or more for the parts kits instead of taking much more time and a lot of employees, and receiving probably about three cents per weapon as scrap steel.

 

[Tirod]

If it would harm an existing business to sell guns or parts, then should we be selling Garands at all? Or the 1911's?

This is where the discussion veers into which voter group we are catering to, and who's agenda. There's been little opposition in the past to selling surplus military guns of the US, it could be said that the earlier CMP sales of 1911's are what actually created the market that exists today. If not for those inexpensive parts available to gunsmiths to alter, we'd likely have seen slower growth of the modified 1911's in competition as the parts would have been all new and more expensive. That would impact the competitor and also the aftermarket buyer. If the introductory guns of the sport were more expensive then fewer people would get into it, and that would have a negative impact to this day - there would be less demand for the import guns we see tricked out with all those parts that were based on cheap altered government parts of yesteryear.

The government subsidization of production in AR parts, along with the ammunition, is what creates the lower prices that make the firearm affordable. Without that there would be an incremental difference in popularity. While Lake City doesn't surplus ammo directly, the pulled bullets and cases are on the market as components which are much cheaper due to volume production. Having government contractors sell their parts does, too, as it spreads the costs of equipment and puts less of it into each part.

Selling off the surplus firearms actually builds demand which then grows the market - if no Garands had been sold would we have the manufacturers we do currently making new walnut stocks, or Criterion barrels? I just got a CMP notice of .308 Garands being offered with a number of newly made replacement parts - if there was a smaller market due to no Garands being offered at all, those manufacturers might not even exist. Even the CMP needs them now to sell what amounts to a pile of parts left over from vetting the poor quality guns left in inventory.

I believe its a much more symbiotic relationship - and just junking the guns into mixed scrap neither suits the shooting industry, shooters, taxpayers, or the makers. Just like a surplus desk or GSA vehicle - we don't scrap them, they are sold off. Even 2 ton military vehicles with no drivetrains are put up for auction and they get buyers, who get them running again - check the Steel Soldiers website. They don't all go to the range as targets - if anything there's far too many.

 

[Deltaboy1984]

Another waste of our Tax dollars!