this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
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No Stupid Questions

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You always hear about gun sales in the US, but you never hear about what happens to the guns at the end of their lifecycle. I assume guns wear out eventually, and I assume you can't just chuck them in the garbage when they do. What happens to them?

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 3 days ago (13 children)

Depends.

Some are broken down for parts. Some get broken down and recycled. Some get used as a display piece and end up being inherited.

But, yeah, you can just chuck them in the trash. You aren't supposed to, but it isn't like an unloaded and busted up gun is dangerous. If you dump a bunch and the atf gets wind of it, expect some uncomfortable time spent explaining yourself. But a single gun? Nobody will even know unless they go looking through trash. But the atf does have guidelines for destroying firearms, and you can always turn them in to police or the atf and they'll get the job done.

Right now, I have a shotgun that hasn't worked in maybe sixty years. No parts available because it's just that old and nobody makes them. I'd have to have someone make the parts it needs. But, it was my great, great grandfather's, so I just keep it clean and protected.

But, I picked up some firearms a few years back from a lady that wanted to get rid of her deceased husband's collection fast and for cash. One of them was not only in horrible shape, unsafe to fire, but it was illegal. Broke it down, recycled what could be, sold the few parts that were usable, then trashed the rest.

Truth is, most guns are going to last a couple of generations since the moving parts can be replaced for anything that's popular enough. Like the 1911, as a perfect example. Some of the originals are out there, still in shape and safe to use because you only need some of the parts replaced as they wear out; the main body of the gun isn't going to just fail in normal usage. Tens of thousands of rounds through some of them.

So the only time a gun wears out is when you can't replace what breaks, or what breaks is the parts that would essentially mean you're buying a new gun rather than repairing an old one.

There's guns from the 1800s still being used out there. Not as many as there used to be because they're fairly valuable, but still. Same with stuff even older, though the older they are the less likely they are to every be fired again, no matter what condition they're in.

My cousin has an old garand my grandfather gave him that he still shoots weekly, and it was carried in action. That thing is damn near a century old, and has been all over the world. I've got an old mauser rifle from the same era that's in great shape, if not exactly ideal since it was sporterized.

If you were asking because you needed to dispose of a damaged firearm, I'd say you should check your local laws first, and then hand them over to whatever state, province, or equivalent for your country's law enforcement is. Mainly to cover your ass. But in the normal course of things, if you render it unrepairable, nobody is going to care what you do with what's left

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (7 children)

One of them was not only in horrible shape, unsafe to fire, but it was illegal.

Intrigued, how was it illegal?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Sawed off shotgun, about a half inch under the legal limit.

Which was the least problematic thing lol.

It was badly done, at an angle. The stock hadn't given replaced with a grip or anything, just cut off. The moving parts were rusty, and he's improvised what he thought was a quick trigger that only made it so that if you racked the slide wrong, it would drop the hammer.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Huh. Cool. I didn't realise the US had laws about stuff like that. Always just assumed if you could legally buy it it's yours to do what you want with. 2nd(?) amendment and all that jazz.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Our gun laws are more permissive than most, if not all, places, but they still exist and are an absolute mess.

Federal laws define anything under a 16" barrel as a short barreled rifle- SBR. That's a colossal no-no and a felony. That is enforced.

The other big thing is that one trigger pull = one round fired. If it breaks that rule, or fires from an open bolt the ATF considers it a machine gun and those are pretty tightly restricted. You can't manufacture more machine guns for the civilian market, they have to be grandfathered in from before they were banned.

There's tons more whacky Federal stuff- like how they treat suppressors. Federal laws have nothing on state laws though. Man does that get confusing when your gun is absolutely fine in Nevada but is a turbo-crime in California. God forbid you bring a thumbhole stock into California. And then there's concealed carry permits- a lot of places it's illegal to carry a handgun concealed with a permit. But the permits are all state issued and whether they're valid in other states is entirely fucking random.

TL;DR: we get a lot of shit for having lax gun laws- and we do- but they definitely exist and navigating them can be a gigantic pain.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Hooooo boy. There's a lot you can't do. If you have a rifle (that uses a 'rifle' round as opposed to a pistol round), your barrel must be over a certain length. But if you have a "rifle" that is chambered in say 9mm (a pistol round), doesn't matter. Barrel could be 4 inches long. But then it can't have a stock. So you have a "wrist brace" (read:totally not a stock I promise) instead. There's a bunch of wacky shit the atf and congress have come up with.

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