WASHINGTON – Federal authorities have launched a search for a “substantial” number of firearms and gun parts that they say were stolen from a government disposal facility, officials said Wednesday.
A security contractor assigned to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives’ repository in Martinsburg, West Virginia has been charged in connection with the missing weapons and parts. A search of his vehicle earlier this month allegedly yielded a pistol that had been registered in the government’s archives of retired weapons in 2017.
Christopher Yates, a contract security guard for the ATF in West Virginia, has been charged with possession of a stolen firearm and theft of government property.
In an interview with ATF agents late last month, Yates also allegedly acknowledged transferring at least some of the stolen property to an unidentified person Maryland.
Feds launch search for ‘substantial’ number of parts, guns stolen from ATF disposal site
Well, ain’t that an embarrassment. At least we know nobody in ATF will be punished as SOP.
Langwell said the parts were likely sold to people who did not know they were stolen. She said the ATF first learned of the theft when a local law enforcement agency asked the ATF to trace a gun part it had recovered.
A gun part that could be traced? I’ll take “What is a confiscated silencer? for $200, Alex.”
Or a lower receiver maybe? Stupid is as stupid do
A Glock slide a friend purchased for a Polymer 80 build had matching serial #s on the slide & barrel. If I recall right these were from a police trade-in, so maybe not all Glock slides & barrels are so marked; not being a Glocker I don’t know for sure.
Police trade-ins make sense for internal tracking.
All Glock slides (and barrels) have serial numbers, even replacement slides and barrels have their own set of numbers.
Euro gun controllers consider the barrels, upper receivers and slides to be as important as “receivers”.
When manufactured, we see that Euro serial numbers match the barrels, slides and frames.
We in the U.S. got lucky by our law makers being their usual lazy ignorant idiotic selfs and only legislating that whatever the ATF considers the ‘receiver’ was the gun and not control the other parts.
Of course demoncraps occasionally submit legislation to control barrels and other parts like the Euros do, but so far that’s gone nowhere.
And as you can tell, I don’t own a Glock.
Thanks for the information 🙂