Feds set to melt down millions worth of military memorabilia

Wow, do we really need 19,000 more handguns in private hands? I'm sure most would end up with responsible owners, but what are that odds that a lot of those will end up on the street?

Just about zero, these guns will be registered and sold through authorized dealers, so the odds are the same as any other firearms sold to and owned by honest citizens. Criminals don't use registered firearms unless they come by them through dishonest means, you are much more likely to see criminals with handguns which have been smuggled into the country or ones stolen from collectors or other authorized users, which in all cases is extremely rare.

This is nothing more than a political football. If the Government sells them, they get shit on from the lefties for putting a restricted weapon out on the market after intitiating a new tough on crime bill. But if they melt them down, they get shit from the media for destroying memorabilia,

They can't win. These pistols are surplus not memorabilia and, except for a few to be placed in museums there is no need for them to be sold to the gerneral public just to save a buck.

If we'd have done that with all our other "memorabilia" there'd be thousands of FN's SMGs, Lee Enfields, Bren guns and whatever floating around our streets.

So a little common sense from the media would have gone a long way in avoiding this conversation.

Who cares?

Based on the title, I thought they were planning on melting down old medals or something of serious historical significance.

A bunch of 60+ year old pistols are hardly worth the effort of trying to sell them to gun collectors. I'd almost bet the bureaucracy necessary to sell them to registered gun owners would cost close to the value of the guns themselves - at least that usually how the government works.

If they really want them to be 'memorabilia', remove the firing pins (or block the barrels or something similar) and sell them as WW2 memorabilia in museums across the country as a fundraising tool.

Nah, leftists can be fairly pro-gun depending on the region. I am from the rural areas and even the people that vote NDP no matter what are pretty pro-gun. It's all the city folk (both sides) you need to watch out for, lots of them for some reason want to force all of us to pay for all the meat we get. Rural people like guns for the fact it cuts out the supermarket and one moose can fill your freezer for over a year.

Oh holy shit!! Is the London Free Press that desperate to paint the Conservatives in a bad light they gotta whine about nothing now?
First, there's plenty of legitmate reasons to complain about Harper's performance.
Second, these aren't , they're fucking restricted weapons. The same kind of weapons the media would be shitting bricks over if the government actually sold them to private citizens.
Third, in the greater scheme of things, as has been mentioned in this forum more than a few times, $7,000,000 is fuck all when it comes to national finances.

I'm guessing lfp actually means Lame Fucking Paper.

7mil here and there adds up in the end you know. Save all your change under a dollar for a few years and a 1L pickle jar full of coins comes out to around $250.

Me too.
Big deal

Big deal. Destruction of surplus weapons and munitions is and always has been SOP for military and law enforcement this side of border. Heritage is preserved in museums, where some will undoubtedly end up....not in some private collector's living room display case.

Good point was raised about the costs of ensuring the weapons were sold to law-abiding citizens, plus given the number of weapons to be sold to private hands, its only a matter a time before some of those guns are "misplaced" or stolen and end up on the streets...no government wants to be responsible for that. Also, Current firearms legislation restricts the resale of firearms, the government would only be accused of hypocrisy if it exempted itself for those restrictions.