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OGDEN — The Weber County Sheriff's Office will soon start selling off some of the guns locked up in evidence after the County Commission just approved the idea.
The hope is to free up some space while raising funds that may help buy equipment.
The guns are mostly handguns and hunting rifles. Deputies say automatic and illegal weapons will not be sold, nor will any weapons that were used in violent crimes. In fact, most of the guns come from people who didn't properly lock up their stuff.
Once the details are worked out, Hy and Mike's Pawnshop will carry a few more guns for sale.
"We've got a lot more evidence coming in than we do going out," Ltn. Colby Ryan with the Weber County Sheriff's Office said.
He said while the evidence room is not chock full of guns, the sheriff's office does need to free up space for the evidence they take in every day.
"We do our due diligence to find the owner of these guns," Ryan said.
But sometimes they never find the rightful owners, or the guns have been taken from people who can't legally have a firearm.
"They are the type of weapons that we need to get out of our evidence lockers to make room for the next round that comes in," Ryan said.
The sheriff's department won't be sending the guns out for sale in large numbers, Ryan added.
"A lot of the guns that we do see, some are antiques, some of them are high-end sporting models like for trap shooting and stuff like that," Ryan said.
The firearms won't go to gun shows. Instead, Hy and Mike's will have to follow federal guidelines and do background checks.
Owner Hiram Barker says that's important.
"Absolutely yeah, we want to make sure that they're going back to law-abiding citizens and that they can legally possess firearms," Barker said.
Surprisingly, the majority of these guns aren't coming from major crime scenes, shootings or drug deals.
"Most of them were stolen out of vehicles or are just not being secured," Ryan said.
Which is why he warns people to keep their guns somewhere safe and not in an unlocked car or garage, where many burglars find them.
Hy and Mike's will get a percentage of the sales. The rest will go to a nonprofit fund at the sheriff's office, which has in the past paid for equipment and K-9s.
