Detroit Police Burn Confiscated Money

Written by Daniel White

Friday, 05 December 2008 03:36

The Detroit police department has announced they will be burning tens of thousands of dollars in cash which was confiscated in 2008.

Ok, that's not entirely accurate, but it might as well be. Would it make sense to destroy cash confiscated as a result of criminal investigations? Then why are they so proud of the fact that they are destroying more than 500 confiscated firearms this week, part of a total of nearly 4,000 destroyed for the year?

Ok, so these were guns that were illegally owned. Big deal. If they are in working order, sell them! In the previous example, they wouldn't say, "hey, that money was earned selling drugs, it is bad money, we need to destroy it." Heck no, they'd be spending it as fast as they could!

The issue is that, as often is done, the confiscated firearms are being characterized as evil. It wasn't the gun that committed a crime, it was the person who owned it. That would be like demolishing a car because someone was selling drugs out of the trunk.

Instead of assigning blame to an inanimate object, the Detroit police department should be looking to maximize the value to the department and turn a negative into a positive. The same gun that was used to rob people could be used by a law abiding citizen to defend against future criminal attacks, while at the same time providing additional funding for law enforcement.

Destroying these firearms may make the anti-gun politicians feel good about themselves, but it isn't helping anyone.