Colorado Springs police may sell seized firearms

The L.A. Times reports:

Reporting from Colorado Springs, Colo. - This conservative city is taking an unusual, some might say extreme, step to try to stem its fiscal woes: It's entering the gun business.

The Colorado Springs City Council is expected in coming weeks to approve the final details of a program that would allow the Police Department to sell confiscated firearms to federally licensed gun dealers. Police have already stopped melting down the hundreds of guns they collect from crime scenes, drug houses or civilians who don't need them anymore.

The sales are projected to bring in about $10,000 a year, only a slight dent for a city that faced a deficit of one-quarter its $200-million annual budget this year. But it still helps, said Vice Mayor Larry Small, who proposed the gun sales.

"Every penny counts," Small said.

Government as gun seller.