While the authorities there seem to be treating this situation fairly, you can bet some ambitious soul will turn it into a witch hunt.
"The funeral directors, who had been unaware of the state law, have started passing on the information to grieving families. It has become part of their routine checklist to ask a dead person's survivor if he or she had any licensed handguns at home . . ."
I wonder how long it will take all funeral homes to start asking if the owner any assault rifles, "licensed" or not?
http://www.newsday.com/ap/regional/ap296.htm
Residents begin turning over illegal guns of deceased owners
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) -- What a difference a little publicity can make.
A week after a newspaper article described how Onondaga County authorities were trying to track down thousands of handguns that belonged to people who have died, residents have begun responding.
Twenty-seven people called the sheriff's department in the last week to turn in guns. The callers said they were unaware that state law required the weapons to be turned over to police within 15 days of the death of a licensed pistol holder, or for someone else to be licensed within that time, Detective Ray Herrick said. After 15 days, it's a misdemeanor for the guns to be in someone's home without a license.
Before the turn-ins of the past week, the department only had received about 20 guns. Herrick said he's arranging to have the weapons recovered from the people who have called. Some of the pistol license holders died years ago, he said.
''People are saying, 'We didn't know what to do,' '' Herrick said. ''I'm sure a lot of it is that people forget because that's a tough time in their lives. It's a little more important to deal with their families than to deal with this pistol.''
Herrick's time also has been spent doing interviews with reporters from around the world about the county's unique project to track down an estimated 12,000 unaccounted-for handguns of dead people.
The sheriff's department may be the first police agency in the country to try to track down the guns of dead people, said Leonard Curry, editor of Washington Crime News Service, a publication that goes out to law enforcement agencies nationwide.
''I haven't seen anything like it,'' Curry said. ''I told Herrick all he had to do was hold a contest to come up with a name for it. He gets a zinger of a name, and he'll get a big grant.''
Herrick, supervisor of the Onondaga County Sheriff's Department pistol license unit, said he's gotten some complaints from people who said the county or the state ought to reimburse people for the handguns they turn in.
''It's a case of somebody taking something without paying for it, and that's stealing,'' said Clifford M. Kalb of Syracuse, a 72-year-old licensed pistol holder who has three handguns and doesn't want his survivors to have to deal with them after he's gone.
But Herrick said the guns turned in to police can go back to the families after they've arranged to get a pistol license. Or the families can have a licensed gun dealer sell them to someone with a license.
Once the guns are turned in, the sheriff's department must hold them for one year before destroying them. The whole process of collecting all the guns is expected to take at least five years but probably will last much longer.
Police estimate there are as many as 4,000 cases in the county alone. The licenses belong to people who would be at least 75 years old if they are alive. Many of the gun owners would be in their mid-100s.
Since pistol license holders own an average of three guns each, about 12,000 handguns are likely out there, either held illegally by relatives or unaccounted for, police said. Files date back to 1931.
A detective has so far found one case in which a pistol license holder died and one of his guns wound up on the streets, traded for drugs by a criminal.
It's likely that a good number of the 1.1 million pistol licenses in the state belong to people who are long gone, said Sgt. James Sherman, head of the state police pistol license unit.
Deputies stumbled onto the glut of unaccounted-for handguns in the county five years ago when they started looking for a way to reduce the load of paper records in the pistol license unit. They discovered that a vast number of licenses apparently belonged to the dead.
Sheriff's officials met with the Onondaga-Oswego Funeral Directors Association a month ago to tell them about their project. The funeral directors, who had been unaware of the state law, have started passing on the information to grieving families. It has become part of their routine checklist to ask a dead person's survivor if he or she had any licensed handguns at home, said Patricia A. Knight, treasurer of the association.
The county's project is getting started as a national debate rages over handgun control and how to reduce the number of weapons available to criminals. The project should serve notice that thousands of unaccounted-for guns would have been off the streets if people had known the law and followed it, officials said.
Copyright © Associated Press. All rights reserved.
------------------
The New World Order has a Third Reich odor.
"The funeral directors, who had been unaware of the state law, have started passing on the information to grieving families. It has become part of their routine checklist to ask a dead person's survivor if he or she had any licensed handguns at home . . ."
I wonder how long it will take all funeral homes to start asking if the owner any assault rifles, "licensed" or not?
http://www.newsday.com/ap/regional/ap296.htm
Residents begin turning over illegal guns of deceased owners
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) -- What a difference a little publicity can make.
A week after a newspaper article described how Onondaga County authorities were trying to track down thousands of handguns that belonged to people who have died, residents have begun responding.
Twenty-seven people called the sheriff's department in the last week to turn in guns. The callers said they were unaware that state law required the weapons to be turned over to police within 15 days of the death of a licensed pistol holder, or for someone else to be licensed within that time, Detective Ray Herrick said. After 15 days, it's a misdemeanor for the guns to be in someone's home without a license.
Before the turn-ins of the past week, the department only had received about 20 guns. Herrick said he's arranging to have the weapons recovered from the people who have called. Some of the pistol license holders died years ago, he said.
''People are saying, 'We didn't know what to do,' '' Herrick said. ''I'm sure a lot of it is that people forget because that's a tough time in their lives. It's a little more important to deal with their families than to deal with this pistol.''
Herrick's time also has been spent doing interviews with reporters from around the world about the county's unique project to track down an estimated 12,000 unaccounted-for handguns of dead people.
The sheriff's department may be the first police agency in the country to try to track down the guns of dead people, said Leonard Curry, editor of Washington Crime News Service, a publication that goes out to law enforcement agencies nationwide.
''I haven't seen anything like it,'' Curry said. ''I told Herrick all he had to do was hold a contest to come up with a name for it. He gets a zinger of a name, and he'll get a big grant.''
Herrick, supervisor of the Onondaga County Sheriff's Department pistol license unit, said he's gotten some complaints from people who said the county or the state ought to reimburse people for the handguns they turn in.
''It's a case of somebody taking something without paying for it, and that's stealing,'' said Clifford M. Kalb of Syracuse, a 72-year-old licensed pistol holder who has three handguns and doesn't want his survivors to have to deal with them after he's gone.
But Herrick said the guns turned in to police can go back to the families after they've arranged to get a pistol license. Or the families can have a licensed gun dealer sell them to someone with a license.
Once the guns are turned in, the sheriff's department must hold them for one year before destroying them. The whole process of collecting all the guns is expected to take at least five years but probably will last much longer.
Police estimate there are as many as 4,000 cases in the county alone. The licenses belong to people who would be at least 75 years old if they are alive. Many of the gun owners would be in their mid-100s.
Since pistol license holders own an average of three guns each, about 12,000 handguns are likely out there, either held illegally by relatives or unaccounted for, police said. Files date back to 1931.
A detective has so far found one case in which a pistol license holder died and one of his guns wound up on the streets, traded for drugs by a criminal.
It's likely that a good number of the 1.1 million pistol licenses in the state belong to people who are long gone, said Sgt. James Sherman, head of the state police pistol license unit.
Deputies stumbled onto the glut of unaccounted-for handguns in the county five years ago when they started looking for a way to reduce the load of paper records in the pistol license unit. They discovered that a vast number of licenses apparently belonged to the dead.
Sheriff's officials met with the Onondaga-Oswego Funeral Directors Association a month ago to tell them about their project. The funeral directors, who had been unaware of the state law, have started passing on the information to grieving families. It has become part of their routine checklist to ask a dead person's survivor if he or she had any licensed handguns at home, said Patricia A. Knight, treasurer of the association.
The county's project is getting started as a national debate rages over handgun control and how to reduce the number of weapons available to criminals. The project should serve notice that thousands of unaccounted-for guns would have been off the streets if people had known the law and followed it, officials said.
Copyright © Associated Press. All rights reserved.
------------------
The New World Order has a Third Reich odor.
