The waste is just incredible

Detroit Police to burn 572 guns

BY TAMMY STABLES BATTAGLIA
December 5, 2008

In another shot at crime, the Detroit Police Department is burning 572 guns today, part of the more than 4,520 firearms confiscated from the hands of criminals during 2008.

Officers expect to display the guns for the media in the Detroit Police Department's Precinct 1 garage downtown at 8 a.m., then take the weapons to an undisclosed location to burn them.
The burn will be the last one of the year. The remaining weapons will be used as evidence to prosecute those who might have used them.

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Good grief. The least they could do is reuse the metal to build a homeless shelter... or recycle it into steel beams to build a house for Habitat.

Or, here's an idea suggested by another reader via comments on this story: sell each gun to a registered user (a non-criminal) for $500 and make over $2 million for the city! That would help the schools, the libraries... hell, it would pay for 25% of what Kwame spent on shutting up the policemen he fired. I just hope the next mayor of Detroit is not as embrassingly loose with taxpayer money and can at least clean up the mess. Anything more than that would be a true miracle.