Federal Law Enforcement Officer Service Weapon Purchase Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCORMICK. Mr. Chair, I am here today to discuss my amendment to H.R. 3091, the Federal Law Enforcement Officer Service Weapon Purchase Act.

Currently, firearms from agencies such as the Secret Service are destroyed once they are retired from service or replaced with new models. This is wasteful and makes no sense. Many law enforcement officers have a special connection to their firearms they use in the line of duty. They would like to take them home to cherish as family heirlooms.

It is only fair to allow the courageous men and women of law enforcement to purchase their service weapons upon retirement, and we should let them do that at a low cost because these are going to be thrown out anyway.

This shouldn't be a revenue-raising scheme for the government. Our law enforcement officers should be able to keep their firearms at a reasonable cost.

My amendment simply changes H.R. 3091 by changing the term ``fair market value'' to ``salvage value,'' which is what would be done to the weapons anyway, salvaging it.

Salvage value is defined as: ``The value of the asset after it becomes useless to the owner or the amount expected to be obtained when a fixed asset is disposed of at the end of its useful life,'' which is exactly what is happening here.

This definition is for the lawyers, appraisers, and accountants, but what I want to talk about is what it means to our law enforcement officers.

This change would allow them to purchase their retired service firearms, which in many cases they discharged in the line of duty to save lives, at a lower cost than the current ``fair market value,'' which it would not be disposed at.

Under current policy, these firearms are destroyed, so the purchase is at salvage value by definition. It would still increase government revenues, because you are actually purchasing it at the same amount and you wouldn't have to actually have the expense of salvaging it, while allowing Federal law enforcement officers to purchase the service weapons that have protected them throughout their careers at a fair price.

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Mr. McCORMICK. Mr. Chair, the basic premise is a misunderstanding of what this is about.

First of all, the weapon would otherwise be destroyed. The only money that would come from it is either the money that is spent on destroying the weapon or the money that was obtained from it by destroying the weapon which would be salvage monetary price, which would be approximately $100 for an average Glock. That is weapon scrap. That is what it is worth. That is how much you would get back from the government.

The gentleman from New York talks about the government supplementing police officers who served an entire career. I was a career military person with over 20 years in the military. My father was a deputy sheriff. This isn't a money-making scheme. As a matter of fact, it is just the opposite. This isn't for the government to make money off of. This is to do the right thing.

This is at best a neutral bill. This shouldn't be about the military people who just spent 20 years of their life paying money to expand the coffers of the American government when otherwise it would be worth about $100 as scrap metal.

The misrepresentation that this should be money that our retirees spend on a weapon that would otherwise be destroyed--and nothing else would be done with that weapon, by the way. When the gentleman talks about fair market value, the fair market value in the market for this is salvage. It is what would be done with the weapon to begin with. The misnomer, the misrepresentation that retired officers that have spent their entire career protecting this Nation, bonding with something that saves their lives and protects other people, is actually kind of offensive to me as a guy who has carried around a service rifle and a service pistol, when I was overseas, in harm's way, the same way my father carried around his service pistol in harm's way.

This is not to make money for the government. This is to do the right thing by those police officers and those law enforcement individuals who served their entire life doing nothing but serving their community. That is what this is about and nothing else.

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Mr. McCORMICK. Mr. Chair, I am going to define once again what this bill is about because I disagree wholeheartedly. If it is at the end of its service life, if it is no longer useful, it is going to be salvaged. Salvaged. We are defining what is happening at the end of a useful life value. Salvaged. It is going to be destroyed. That is what the government will do with it. The government is not going to sell it; the government is going to salvage it. The government is not going to put it on the market, the fair market for a used weapon, they are going to destroy it.

Therefore, the value of the weapon is whatever it is destroyed for. That is the definition. That is clear in this bill, and that has been defined. Trying to mislead the public on what this is about is, once again, offensive to me.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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