Law officials look favorable on plan to sell weapons they impound

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

May 5, 1999

By Devlyn Brooks

Regional law enforcement agencies are looking favorable on a Minnesota House and Senate compromise that authorizes law enforcement agencies to resume -- after a five-year hiatus -- selling the weapons they impound.

Bemidji Police Chief Bob Tell is neutral on possible resumption of impounded gun sales to federally licensed dealers, while Beltrami County Sheriff Keith Winger and Cass County Sheriff Jim Dowson favor the move.

Tell says it doesn't make that much of a difference to his police department.

"My view on this is neutral," Tell said. "It didn't bother me a bit to chop them up either."

If anybody with a clean record can sell a firearm to anyone else, Winger said he thinks it's a great idea for sheriff's departments to have the same opportunity.

"Essentially, they're giving us (sheriffs) the same rights that everybody has," Winger said. "I feel that sheriffs should have at least that privilege."

Dowson is looking forward to the opportunity to resell seized weapons as well.

"We can take the money we (do) make and apply it to equipment or trade it in for new guns (for the sheriff's department)," he said. "It supplements our budget for new equipment."

Tell said Bemidji, unlike metro areas, won't garner as much revenue from seized guns, because there just isn't as many arrests leading to gun confiscation. He added that he doesn't remember ever accumulating more than $3,000 worth of guns for resale.

Dowson said the Cass County Sheriff's Department seizes about an estimated 15 weapons annually, and the value of the weapons varies greatly.

"We can see some high-valued guns in a drug raid," he said.

Winger said he doesn't expect his department to make too much off confiscated weapons, but every bit helps.

Dowson noted that the law enforcement offices do not get to keep every gun seized. If a gun is stolen, and the owner is found, the weapon is returned to the owner, or to an insurance company if it has laid claim to the gun.

Only when the gun's owner isn't found does the law enforcement agency place the gun in the resale program.

One difference between the new bill and old bill, Dowson said, is that the new bill only allows law agencies to resell guns to federally licensed firearms dealers. Under the older bill that expired in 1994, law enforcement agencies could publicly auction guns to anyone legally able to possess one.

The other benefit of the new law is that federally licensed firearms dealers tend to know which guns can be fixed and resold. They can help the departments determine which ones can be safely used again or which ones should be melted down.

So, the Cass County Sheriff's Department still will melt down any guns that aren't fit to be resold.

"This will let someone who has knowledge about guns determine whether they should be sold or destroyed," Dowson said. "(The guns) are not weapons that have had a lot of tender loving car."