More than 25,000 weapons have been taken off Columbus streets by police in the past decade. Most are seized during criminal investigations, including those for drug sales, robberies, assaults and homicides, or in instances where a person was not allowed to carry the weapon legally.

His license plate read "AR15MAN," and when Columbus police officers encountered him, he'd just thrust a 12-inch knife into the lid of his neighbor's trash can.

As officers interviewed the man, he told them what he'd been up to lately. He was walking around Downtown near the Ohio Statehouse with a sawed-off rifle. That gun and more were inside his Northwest Side house, he told the officers on that morning in March 2017.

Then he started running for his door.

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Officers subdued him with a Taser, sent him to a hospital for a mental-health assessment and got a search warrant for his house.

In a crawlspace accessed through a door in a walk-in closet inside the home, Columbus police found four firearms, including the sawed-off rifle, and the parts to make six other semi-automatic rifles.

Those firearms were among more than 25,000 guns Columbus police have taken off the streets in the past 10 years. Most of the guns recovered during 2018 were taken during criminal investigations, including those for drug sales, robberies, assaults and homicides, or in instances where a person was not able to carry the weapon legally. That was because they were felons, didn't have a concealed-carry permit or didn't properly secure weapons in their vehicles, according to an analysis of police gun data by The Dispatch.

Rifles and illegally modified weapons are a relatively rare find. Semi-automatic pistols account for more of the guns police seize than all other categories combined.

The man in the 2017 incident was found not guilty by reason of insanity on felony counts of possession of dangerous ordnance (the sawed-off rifle) and obstructing official business and misdemeanor counts of trespass and inducing panic. Because he is being treated for mental health issues, The Dispatch is not naming him. Police continue to hold the weapons they took from his home and plan to destroy them this year, in accordance with a court order.

Detective David Bucy, who has been with the Columbus police gun unit since its inception in 2009, said cases like the one in March 2017 are the exception and not the rule of what the unit typically handles.

"Guns from felony investigations is the largest percentage of what we get," Bucy said.

Weapons are found most often during traffic stops, serving of search warrants and investigations of violent crimes, he said.

Detectives seized 12 firearms, including rifles, pistols and shotguns, from a home on the Southeast Side on Jan. 1, 2018, while investigating the homicide of 30-year-old Ashley Newman. Those weapons are all being held as evidence as the case against the man accused of killing Newman, her 32-year-old husband, Sean Newman, progresses through the court system.

The majority of the weapons police take are either held for evidence or sent to be melted down in a foundry. About 25% are returned to their lawful owners, either because they were stolen and have been recovered, or because the owner was not found to be guilty of a crime that prohibits owning a firearm.

Hundreds of guns are recovered by units throughout the Police Division each year. Bucy's gun unit concentrates on felony weapons offenses, including when people don't have the right to possess a firearm. Through the first six months of 2019, the gun unit submitted paperwork to the Franklin County prosecutor's office to consider 159 different cases of having weapons under disability, meaning a felon had possession of a firearm.

There have been an additional 168 packets of paperwork submitted for improper handling of a firearm in a vehicle and 59 cases submitted for carrying a concealed weapon without a permit or license.

State law dictates that any person convicted of a felony for a crime of violence or misdemeanor domestic violence is considered "under disability" or unable to possess a firearm. And what Ohio law doesn't cover, federal law does, Bucy said.

Federal law says that any felony conviction punishable by more than a year in prison prohibits the possession of a firearm. All felonies in Ohio are punishable by a year in prison or more, so essentially nobody convicted of a felony in Ohio can own a gun.

However, the law allows the purchase of parts for firearms without a background check, such as the six AR-15 lower receivers found in the man's crawl space in March 2017. They're unregulated by the ATF.

These parts, commonly called 80% lowers, hold the mechanisms required to fire a weapon and are available for purchase online and in gun stores.

Bucy said there is nothing to prevent someone from purchasing those parts and then building a firearm, like the man was doing in his home. But he said that's something detectives rarely see, even those who focus on firearms cases.

"That was obviously unique ... it was certainly outside the normal pipeline where people would normally acquire a firearm," he said.

Bucy said most firearms that are purchased legally are acquired in one of two ways: either at a gun store with a purchase that requires a background check or through personal sales. He said those who want to obtain a firearm illegally, as detectives often find during investigations of felonies such as robberies and homicides, are trading or purchasing weapons on the street.

Suzanne Dabkowski, spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' Columbus field division, said there is no real way to track who is purchasing parts for firearms.

The only thing the government regulates is the purchase of actual firearms, she said.

Receivers like the ones the Northwest Side man was purchasing are not finished firearms until they have certain parts drilled into them, so they are not regulated and do not require a background check when being bought.

The grass-roots group Ohioans for Gun Safety has proposed a measure that would effectively require background checks on all Ohio gun purchases.

The group's proposal uses the Ohio Revised Code definition of firearm, meaning it needs to be able to expel or propel a projectile through an explosion or combustible propellant. Dennis Willard, a spokesman for the group, said the group believes their proposal can apply to deconstructed firearms as well.

"Firearms are often broken down, cleaned and put back together," he said. "We believe that our initiated petition will apply to any functioning firearm. Just because it may be broken down or taken apart does not mean that it’s not a firearm."

Buckeye Firearms Association Executive Director Dean Rieck said his group opposes the proposal and does not believe it could apply to gun parts.

"It really depends on what definition of 'firearm' you’re talking about," he said. "I don’t necessarily see a direct connection with the initiative."

Yet home-built weapons like the ones that were being created in that Northwest Side basement have been used in at least one mass shooting. A man in California used a weapon he built with an 80% lower to kill five people and fire more than 100 rounds at Santa Monica College in 2013.

Stephen Palmer was one of the attorneys who represented the Northwest Side man. He said his client was a "hobbyist" who enjoyed building his own firearms but never had any intention of using them to cause harm.

"I don't believe he was building automatic weapons," Palmer said. "A lot of people build their own AR-15 platform weapons. It's not unusual."

Dabkowski said it is legal for someone to manufacture or create a gun for personal use as long as the owner is legally allowed to possess a firearm.

"We could certainly see a repeat of that or any situation," Bucy said. "Criminals will find a way to get guns. They always find the loophole."

Dispatch reporter Ben Deeter contributed to this story.

bbruner@dispatch.com

@bethany_bruner

dcaruso@dispatch.com

@dougcaruso

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