WHEREAS, the widespread unlawful use, possession and sale of firearms is directly related or contributes to the number one cause of duty related deaths of police officers and results in thousands of deaths and injuries to citizens each year; and

WHEREAS, law enforcement agencies come into possession of tens of thousands of these firearms each year; and

WHEREAS, the recirculation of these firearms back into the general population increases the availability of firearms which could be used again to kill or injure additional police officers and citizens; now therefore be it

RESOLVED, that the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), duly assembled at its 105th annual conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, encourages all law enforcement agencies to adopt a mandatory destruction policy of all firearms that come into its possession which are unregistered, found or unclaimed property, used in the commission of any crime, surrendered voluntarily by any citizen, purchased for use by that agency, or by any other means, shall, once they have served any evidentiary purpose or usefulness for police, be destroyed in such a fashion as to render them permanently unusable as firearms. All other such weapons shall not be sold, traded, nor redistributed, other than for legitimate law enforcement or forensic purposes, where the agency maintains ownership and control, except that agencies may donate such weapons to legitimate museums for historical purposes. Those agencies who sell such firearms will do so only to a federally licensed firearms dealer and shall report the serial numbers to the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.