So it's a total non-story once you dig into it, and the article is just an opportunistic play to beat the "guns bad" and "police bad" drum at the same time.
Basically, the guns you can buy new at any store in the US are by and large identical to those that the police use.
When a police department replaces their equipment, they can either destroy their old firearms (and many do) or they can recoup some cost by having a retailer bulk purchase these old guns from them to be graded, inventoried, and resold on the legal secondhand market. Police departments can get a slight discount on their new equipment when they do this, and private civilian gun owners can buy these used firearms for cheaper than a brand new example of the same model. The FBC/NICS background check and purchase paperwork for buying a firearm in the US doesn't change regardless if it's a new or used gun.
I don't see how this practice is particularly relevant in a country where we manufacture and import over 10 million of firearms a year.
If it makes you feel warm and fuzzy, you can mandate that all police firearms go straight to the incinerator once they're done with them. But the amount of guns you'd be pulling off of the market in that case is an utterly insignificant rounding error in terms of the broader availability of firearms. If anything, you're helping Glock and Smith & Wesson's bottom line a little by forcing more civilian buyers to opt for new production vs Police trade-in used.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives would obviously use positive language (turned up at crime scene) to downplay that fact that their weapons have been used in crimes.
I can see it now, Little guns that suddenly grew legs and walked to the crime scene.
Highly unlikely they are going to admit to that little misdemeanour.
I find it rather humorous to suggest that an agency like the DEA, with no actual function besides getting marketable goods out of a market should marginally lower their costs because market impact is a pipe dream.
The DEA has to do with this topic since you are contradicting a federal decision.
Your use of statistics here is meaningless. 52000 is not the number of guns they put on the street.
The market impact is real and covered in the article. People specifically search for police guns because they are cheap relative to other properties that make them appropriate for human on human violence.
Basically, the guns you can buy new at any store in the US are by and large identical to those that the police use.
When a police department replaces their equipment, they can either destroy their old firearms (and many do) or they can recoup some cost by having a retailer bulk purchase these old guns from them to be graded, inventoried, and resold on the legal secondhand market. Police departments can get a slight discount on their new equipment when they do this, and private civilian gun owners can buy these used firearms for cheaper than a brand new example of the same model. The FBC/NICS background check and purchase paperwork for buying a firearm in the US doesn't change regardless if it's a new or used gun.
I don't see how this practice is particularly relevant in a country where we manufacture and import over 10 million of firearms a year.
If it makes you feel warm and fuzzy, you can mandate that all police firearms go straight to the incinerator once they're done with them. But the amount of guns you'd be pulling off of the market in that case is an utterly insignificant rounding error in terms of the broader availability of firearms. If anything, you're helping Glock and Smith & Wesson's bottom line a little by forcing more civilian buyers to opt for new production vs Police trade-in used.