St Louis Police Dept to sell Thompsons

[RCS]

Shooting Illustrated | St. Louis Police Sells Thompson Submachine Guns

The St Louis Police Dept is selling twenty four Colt Model 1921, one Model 1928 and two Model M1A1 Thompsons. A dealer has offered $22,000.00 for each Thompson and the St Louis Police are going to sell them

Nice to see these weapons become available to collectors

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[browningautorifle]

Yes, that's nice. Our RCMP had a couple consecutively serial guns that are in Hill's book...they put one in the museum in Regina and destroyed the other. There are men in this country that are allowed to buy and sell FA... I'd like to have seen the rack of Thompsons in the PD before they moved though. That would be nostalgia at it's best.

[Vincent]

Are they really transferables?

The SLPD also have a couple of Lewis guns.

[Flying10uk]

This seems like a much more sensible approach for dealing with surplus law enforcement/military weapons rather than just cutting them up into little pieces for scrap, as seems to be the approach in the U.K.. The surplus weapons do still have a monetary value, as is shown by the article, and it seems like an intelligent course of action to sell them to reputable dealers and thus offset the cost of the replacement weapons that the Police department sources. In this instance historic weapons have been saved for posterity and the U.S. tax payer has been saved a significant sum of money required for the purchase of new weapons.

It is said that the policy here is to cut up/destroy surplus weapons rather than sell them to reputable dealers who could then legally deactivate them, inline with the current regulations, and then legally sell them on to collectors. It does seem a shame that historic and interesting weapons are not being saved here, even if only for deactivation, because the U.K. taxpayer loses out as a result.

[Brit plumber]

Isn't the UN partially behind this? I read an article years ago about a UN directive that all members should destroy surplus military arms rather than sell on the open market.

[browningautorifle]

Are they really transferables?

They're "pre" guns aren't they? They should be transferable.

[Flying10uk]

The U.S. is currently a member of the U.N., isn't it? At least they host the headquarters. The U.K. is probably the only country on the planet that enforces the directive to the full.

[mrclark303]

The U.S. is currently a member of the U.N., isn't it? At least they host the headquarters. The U.K. is probably the only country on the planet that enforces the directive to the full.

I don't know if the UN directive covers Law Enforcement firearms or is specifically aimed at Military surplus F10?

[Gil Boyd]

They'll go to the highest Dealer bidder one would suppose...........I saw one being sold on the Pawn Shop programme and fired on the range. A remarkable weapon well ahead of its time

[Flying10uk]

One can imagine the press having a field day if the U.K. Police started selling off firearms to the highest bidder............although it may help their funding crisis that they keep harping on about.