74,000 & growing: Some NC police departments stockpile guns rather than release them

EDITOR’S NOTE: This reporting is part of ongoing News & Observer and Charlotte Observer coverage about gun violence, its impact on families and communities and relevant public policy.

More than 74,000.

That is how many guns North Carolina’s 10 most populated cities have under lock and key. Some are evidence in criminal cases. But most are simply warehoused, with their numbers growing weekly.

Inventories of handguns, rifles and automatic weapons have been growing inside police stations for years. The prime reason is a 2013 North Carolina law that essentially forbids police from destroying most functioning firearms.

The law, backed by gun rights advocates, allows law enforcement agencies to sell guns to licensed firearm dealers. But some officials in North Carolina’s most populated cities don’t want to for various reasons.

Some police chiefs worry those guns would end up in the hands of criminals at a time when firearms and shootings are already too common in their communities

“A lot of departments don’t want to sell them back into circulation because they will see them again used in other crimes,” said Fred Baggett✓, a lobbyist for the North Carolina Association of Chiefs of Police✓.

But keeping the weapons brings challenges too, including at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department✓, which now houses more than 25,000 firearms.

“We are at a critical mass,” said Charlotte Major Brad Koch✓.

Prior to the 2013 law, once a relevant criminal case was finished, firearms that could not be returned to their owners could be destroyed.

Now, the guns are growing liabilities spilling out of the evidence room, wrote Mike Allinger✓, a spokesperson for Charlotte-Mecklenburg police, in an email to The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer.

“When the number of firearms stored increases weekly, the level of responsibility and liability increases as well,” he wrote.

Store them or sell them?

No one keeps a tally of all guns stored by this state’s police and sheriff departments. But the fact that an N&O survey documented more than 74,000-plus firearms are now held in 10 cities doesn’t surprise North Carolina Central Police Chief Damon Williams✓.

Williams is the immediate past president of the North Carolina Association of Chiefs of Police. That group recently voted, as it has in the past, to lobby the General Assembly to change the law, but Williams is not expecting much to come of it.

Along with leaders in Durham, Fayetteville and Greensboro, Williams supports legislation to allow them to destroy weapons taking over evidence rooms not equipped for the inflow of hundreds of guns each year.

“I am always hopeful, but right now, I think it is not a very high chance that we will be able to get some traction with this,” he said.

The 2013 law passed with bipartisan support and was signed by Gov. Pat McCrory that June.

Previous efforts to change the law in 2015, 2019, and 2021 were unsuccessful in the Republican-led General Assembly.

“Some legislators feel that it is wrong to destroy guns,” explained Baggett, the Association of Chiefs of Police lobbyist.

That includes Sen. Danny Britt, a Robeson County Republican known for bridging bi-partisan divides on criminal justice reform issues.

But Britt prefers little government control over firearms. He’s introduced bills, this year included, to repeal pistol permits and to allow people with concealed carry permits to carry guns on school property after hours during religious services.

Storing or destroying 74,000 guns isn’t going to make our cities safer, he said. “Individuals who want to get their hands on a gun, are going to get their hands on a gun,” he said.

Britt suggested that the state set up an easy way for their departments to transfer the weapons to an agency that will.

“Seventy-four thousand guns could buy quite a few squad cars for a sheriff’s department in my district,” he said.

A difference of opinion

With more than 25,000 guns locked up, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department has the largest stockpile among cities. Just like other police departments, the firearms have been found or collected as evidence and held for safekeeping, Allinger wrote in an email.

Storing 25,000 guns is also a drain on the city’s resources, as every firearm has to be tracked and easily located in a space not designed for those kinds of numbers, he wrote.

Greensboro’s facility was designed for about 3,000 guns, but they have ended up with nearly 11,000.

That’s better than them being on the street being used in crimes, said police spokesperson Josie Cambareri✓.

“We would like to be able to destroy any guns; not just the ones the law allows now,” Cambareri wrote.

Fayetteville, which has nearly 9,000 guns in storage, recently spent about $50,000 on “rolling storage shelves,” to store additional weapons, Police Chief Gina Hawkins wrote in a statement to The News & Observer before she retired recently.

Last year, the Durham Police Chief asked for more than $80,000 to increase storage space, in part to accommodate the about 8,400 guns the city has stored.

Raleigh Police Department takes in from 900 to 1,300 guns each year, according to information provided by Raleigh police spokesperson Jason Borneo. Late last year it held about 7,227, police said.

Some sell guns

Police departments in Cary, High Point and Concord sell their weapons.

Cary has sold 47 over the past 12 months. Concord sold 296 in 2021 and 2022. High Point has sold 1,041 since 2014.

Guns confiscated by High Point police are transferred to a Kentucky-based business Bud’s Police Supply FFL through auction services and sold through open bidding, according to spokesperson Victoria Ruvio✓.

The High Point Police Department traces all guns that come in, and they have no known instance of a firearm being sold and then returning back into their possession, Ruvio wrote.

Through the police department’s sale of about 902 guns, the Guilford County School Board received more than $65,800. The police department received about $10,000.

Raleigh Police Department staff did not responded to questions about whether their department sells its guns and how many it has sold. Nor did it respond to questions about whether staff support legislation that would allow them to destroy guns.

A tale of two police chiefs

Williams, who supports allowing North Carolina law enforcement to destroy guns, watches over public safety for NCCU in Durham. In 2022, there were about 46 homicides in Durham, most of which involved deaths shootings. More than 200 people were shot.

Considering the situation, Williams can’t understand why the request is controversial.

“We are not talking about weapons that are classic collectible items,” he said, adding: “We are talking about guns used in violent crime and different criminal events.”

Chiefs in more rural communities seem more comfortable selling guns, Williams said, while chiefs in bigger cities, responding to shooting after shooting, often won’t entertain the idea.

Chief Blair Myhand, who was elected president of the North Carolina Association of Chiefs of Police in January, leads the Hendersonville Police Department.

The department patrols a usually peaceful town south of Asheville with a population of some 15,000.In 2022, Hendersonville experienced zero homicides; less than five people were shot there.

Myhand, who describes himself as “unabashedly a pro second-amendment individual,” supports the current law. Gun rights supporters have concerns that a law allowing police departments to destroy guns would erode gun rights, Myhand said.

“There is this fear, if the government were to pass a law that said you could destroy these firearms, that is the crack in the ice,” he said.

Hendersonville trades its guns in, and uses the credit, as much as $6,000 a year, to buy police equipment. “That saves our cities thousands of dollars a year,” he said.

Myhand doesn’t track the guns he sells, but said he’s confident about the process, he said.

The vendors only sell to law enforcement or a wholesaler, he said. So the guns have to be sold legally. “No different than any new gun that is sold now,” Myhand said.

Still, as president of the national association, Myhand said he will advocate for a change that would allow municipalities to decide.

He respects other chiefs’ concerns about putting guns seized in crimes back into circulation, even though he disagrees with it, he said. He also wants chiefs to have the tools they think they need to serve their community.

“I think we lead at a community level, and so every community is different,” he said.