The Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office is set to sell off hundreds of firearms seized over the course of several decades. But their approach — raising funds by suddenly allowing hundreds of firearms back into the community — is one not shared by many of the largest law enforcement agencies in the state.

During the course of their work, law enforcement agencies across the state seize, recover, find or are awarded by a court hundreds, if not thousands, of firearms.

But eventually, those firearms begin to take up space in property rooms, requiring law enforcement to make a decision about how to dispose of those weapons.

The answer differs from agency to agency, including in Oklahoma.

Some agencies choose to destroy the weapons that accumulate in their property rooms, rather than putting guns that potentially could be used in a crime back out on the street. Others decide to sell the weapons through public auctions, which helps raise money for the agency.

The Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office is scheduled to hold a large auction Saturday of surplus, seized, found, and forfeited property — including more than 300 firearms consisting of an array of pistols, rifles and shotguns.

It’s the first such auction by the Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office in more than 28 years, said Deputy Nick Mahoney.

“We had offices that were full, our property room was full, we have a building across the street and it was completely full from floor to ceiling with all different types of property that needed removed,” Mahoney said. “In our actual property room, in our gun vault, it was stacked. There were guns everywhere — guns that had been there since the 80s.”

The auction has been in the works for about a year, Mahoney said. Each firearm had to be catalogued and inventoried, its history, legal status and ownership researched, and approval had to be obtained from the district court to sell each one, he said.

Some of the firearms were involved in crimes, some were seized because of drug-related offenses or because the owner had been ordered to turn them over as the result of a felony conviction, while others were kept by the sheriff’s office because they were either found property or were being held for safe keeping during protective order cases, Mahoney said.

The sheriff’s office issued public notices seeking the owners of the firearms that were found or being held as part of non-criminal cases were, Mahoney said, and a handful of people came forward to claim firearms that belonged to them as a result.

The sheriff’s office weighed the question of whether to destroy the firearms or sell them, and decided that the best course of action would be to sell them in order to help raise money.

[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“Everybody today is having budget constraints. We thought, what is more beneficial for us, what’s more beneficial for taxpayers? We could use $100,000. The County Commissioners would love to give us an extra $100,000, but they just don’t have it.” – Wagoner County Deputy Nick Mahoney[/perfectpullquote]

“Everybody today is having budget constraints,” Mahoney said. “We thought, what is more beneficial for us, what’s more beneficial for taxpayers? We could use $100,000. The County Commissioners would love to give us an extra $100,000, but they just don’t have it.”

In addition, it would cost the sheriff’s office money to destroy the firearms, he said.

“If we can sell stuff that’s been here for 30 years and offset some of the cost that would normally be passed on to the taxpayers, we thought that was a better idea than sending them to be destroyed, which would cost thousands upon thousands of dollars,” Mahoney said.

During the auction, any person purchasing a firearm will be required to undergo an FBI background check prior to the sale being finalized, Mahoney said.

At the Tulsa Police Department, a different approach to seized or forfeited firearms is taken.

A small number of seized and forfeited firearms are turned over to TPD firearms examiners for use in forensic examinations, and some that are compatible with TPD-issued weaponry are given to the TPD firing range, but nearly all other firearms are destroyed.

“We talked about (selling the firearms) it at one point,” said TPD spokeswoman Jeanne MacKenzie, “but it never came about, so we just destroy them.”

Meanwhile, Casey Roebuck, spokeswoman for the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office, said the agency sells seized and forfeited firearms after adjudication. The weapons are sold to a federal firearms broker and the proceeds go into the general fund, she said.

The Oklahoma City Police Department is another agency that destroys seized and forfeited firearms after the cases related to them have been fully adjudicated, said Capt. Bo Mathews.

“We end up destroying them,” Mathews said. “I think they take them to a grinder that just chews them up.”

The Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office used to sell guns that had been seized or forfeited, but later stopped the practice, said spokesman Mark Opgrande.

“Years ago, they used to sell a lot of that stuff, but then that would defeat the purpose of taking it off the streets — selling it and putting it back on the streets,” Opgrande said.

However, after the retirement of longtime Oklahoma County Sheriff John Whetsel earlier this year, the sheriff’s office is looking at how it will move forward to dispose of those firearms, he said.

The Rogers County Sheriff’s Office, Creek County Sheriff’s Office and Okmulgee County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to questions by The Frontier about how seized and forfeited firearms are disposed of.

The Wagoner County Sheriff’s Auction is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Wagoner Civic Center, 301 S. Grant Ave., with a viewing of all the property set to be sold beginning at 8 a.m. Photos of some items scheduled to be sold can be viewed at http://www.rockinmauction.com/8-19—wagoner-county-sheriff-auction.html.