Do guns wear out? Do they end up in landfill? You always hear about guns being sold, but never about what happens to them at the end of their useful life.
Do guns wear out? Do they end up in landfill? You always hear about guns being sold, but never about what happens to them at the end of their useful life.
Most guns don’t really wear out in a reasonable timeframe. Properly maintained they can last quite a while. My first gun was from the 80s.
For gun owners in the U.S. if we no longer want a gun, don’t want to go through the hassle of selling it, or the gun is unsafe (due to wear and tear or defects), or wherever reason really if we just want to get rid of it we have many options.
We can surrender a gun to our local police, though they may run its serial which might lead to awkward situations if you aren’t certain of its history. There are also gun buybacks which are essentially events where you can discard a gun for cash incentive, and are typically no questions asked. You could also donate it to a local gunsmith for practice. And finally, you could render it inoperable (the ATF has guidelines that basically boil down to “weld the important stuff”) and simply discard it like trash, use it as decoration, or whatever really.
Ultimately they either end up melted down, welded inoperable, or simply discard / forgotten.
Just another point to your first sentence:
I have a pistol and rifle, both are so old that legally they’re not even considered firearms anymore. The pistol is from 1600s Britain and the rifle is from 1700s US. Both can be fired still thanks to either good maintenance or restoration prior to my ownership, but they require specialty ammunition and genuine black gunpowder. They’re legally considered antiques.
If ever they were “destroyed,” if they weren’t in a museum then they’d just be stripped, with the wood probably being chipped and the metal being recycled.
Isn’t it the fact that its a “percussion instrument” that makes it legal, not its antiquity? Like I thought anyone can go online and buy a Kentucky rifle kit online legally?
Its both. First, the firearm must be manufactured in or before 1898. Anything made in 1899 or newer is legally a firearm. Second, the firing mechanism can be anything (matchlock, flintlock, percussion cap, even cartridge firing) so long as the ammunition it fires is not widely commercially available, and if the firearm is not modified to be able to fire modern center or rimfire ammunition. Machine guns and shotguns that have been shortened below 16 inches are always considered firearms regardless of their date of manufacture. An antique firearm can have all of its parts completely replaced and still be considered an antique as long as it uses the original receiver.
Yes, this is true. You dont need to buy these through an FFL and you don’t need to register them. The law also applies to replicas, as long as the replica is manufactured in the same design in or prior to 1898, not allowing modern ammunition to be fired as well etc, following the above qualifications. Anyone can buy Kentucky Rifle kits and other such kits, and those are considered antique firearms according to law. But the ones with black plastic bodies that look like modern firearms, despite being muzzleloaders or even black powder guns, are not considered antique because they are not replicating a firearm manufactured in or prior to 1898.