Q: We have a shotgun that a customer brought in last Sept 2015 for storage. He paid one month storage and we were unable to reach him for subsequent payment. The gun is so worthless I wouldn’t even resell it in my store. The amount owed for storage exceeds the value of the gun. We sent a registered letter with a proper notice of abandoned property. It was returned as “unable to forward.” I contacted my local police chief to get the gun destroyed. She told me that the guy is prohibited from possessing a gun until 2020 and is currently living in the Solano Country Jail on unrelated felony charges. I am satisfied with our efforts to establish our rights to the gun. It’s a civil matter anyway and if he wants to come after us financially, I don’t care. So, I asked the Chief to send the gun for destruction. Her reply was for me to try and deliver the letter to the guy in jail. She won’t take the gun until I have better proof that I have rights to it. I called CA DOJ and as usual, they gave me a nonsense answer. When I called them on it, they went to their “supervisor,” and came back with, “well, i guess you’ll have to get him to sign for the letter in jail like the chief suggested. Once he does that, we’ll send someone to pick it up, or do something… whatever we normally do.” Exact words from CA DOJ. I asked DOJ about their form to report a destroyed gun and the guy told me “that’s only for law enforcement.” I said, “oh.” Then he said, “I think so.” So, I’m fed up and going to destroy the gun myself to be done with it. I will use a torch to cut the receiver in four pieces. My bound book has a “destroyed” option. Since DOJ doesn’t know what to do, I am just going to worry about ATF. What do I need to do in terms of ATF?
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