Lincoln County sheriff selling old guns to buy new ones — Issued, seized firearms to be auctioned

Published 9:22 pm Monday, June 18, 2018

The list contains a couple of Handi-Rifles, the nickname for the single-shot, break-open rifles made by Harrington and Richardson, one in .45-70 and the other in 35 Whelen. They are popular tools for Mississippi’s “primitive weapon” season on deer.

There’s also an old Charles Daly 1911 pistol in .45, imported from Armscor in the Philippines. There’s a Sporter I.O. model AK-47, though most AK enthusiasts say they’re garbage and recommend against buying one. And there are eight snubnosed .38 Special revolvers — seven Smith and Wesson Model 442s and a Charter Arms.

The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department is looking to sell all of them.

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“We’re putting them all together for an auction,” said Lincoln County Sheriff Steve Rushing. “Really, we’re just trying to clean up our inventory and use the value on these older weapons to offset the costs on our newer firearms.”

Rushing on Monday received permission from the Lincoln County Board of Supervisors to begin advertising the weapons for sale — a total of 30 pistols and rifles, the eight .38s department-owned backup weapons, now retired, and 22 other weapons seized during investigations. The seized weapons range from pistols to shotguns to long rifles, and even a crossbow.

The weapons will be sold as one cache. Only licensed firearms dealers are allowed to bid. Anyone interested in the department’s surplus firearms may soon find them on racks at a local gun store.

Rushing said the money made from the auction will be used to even out the costs of purchasing new backup weapons for the department’s investigators, who traditionally carry smaller, lighter pistols in addition to their regular sidearms.

“We’re going with 9mm Glocks, the little ones,” he said. “We’re trying to get everything standardized so we can save on our ammo costs.”