TexasCHLforum.com

surprise_i'm_armed wrote:Do you know how TABC ends up with weapons?

Sure do. It is actually a misconception that all TABC does is handle the bars themselves. they are a state police agency with full police powers. They investigate any crime that involves alcohol anywhere in Texas. This includes any crime that occurs on a licensed premise.

So, they investigate things like shootings, drugs, and prostitution that occur in bars. As such, they get to seize the evidence like any other police agency. They were one of the agencies that made a big international case on human slavery in Houston a couple years ago. It started with some TABC agents catching underage prostitutes in a bar and listening to them instead of just booking them. They do work with other agencies, like the FBI and INS in that case, and many local agencies. Most of the time, TABC works with the local agency and lets them do the seizures, but not always.

As an aside on one of their more important jobs, TABC is responsible for what they call source investigations. Any fatality accident, or serious injury accident, that is caused by a DWI is investigated by TABC. They have to determine the exact location where the driver was last served alcohol. Then they take action against the bar if they violated the rules on serving a drunk. The results of the case also help local agencies with the manslaughter case and the survivors with the civil suits.

Well, the correct answer is that most departments trade them in for their new guns. Very few in this area actually destroy guns. The stores then can sell them. For anyone who wants them, CDN Systems (seller name cdnsystems) has the contract with the state to sell firearms for the state police agencies. They list them on Gunbroker for anyone to buy. For example, the mini-Uzi they currently are selling for $799 is an old seized gun from TABC. Checking just now, I found that it had been converted to 9mm. I never knew that the whole three years it was in my safe. It was marked as a .45 and I never tried to do anything with it.

The 4043's and 4046's are old duty guns (and they got about 75 to sell).

Dury's Guns in San Antonio sells a lot of the SAPD guns. They will sell to any legal purchaser. I don't know if they just get the old duty weapons or if they get seized guns also. GT Distributors in Austin gets a lot of contracts from around the country also. They do sell seized guns and old duty guns. I think they will sell the used guns to any legal purchaser though the new guns only get sold to police, military, EMS, or firefighters (part of their license agreement with the manufacturers).

Now, the bad news is that the bad guys very rarely have guns worth having. Of the batch TABC recently sent off for sale, there were 15 seized guns, of which only three were really worth considering. The mini-Uzi was one, and there was a Walther PPK and a Thompson/Center Contender. The PPK was in medium bad shape but could be cleaned up. The Contender was in .44 Mag and decent shape with one or two spots of rust. There were three Raven 25's or similar quality (sold as a pack of three by CDN to even get a bid). The rest were somewhere in the middle, mostly valueless unless you were a collector of that specific brand or model.