Washington Post: “…According to Senate Bill 350, passed in 2012 by the GOP-controlled General Assembly, the gun cannot be destroyed. Cities and counties must auction off the guns confiscated by local law enforcement during criminal investigations within six months. Municipalities cannot go through the motions, holding the auctions but rejecting all bids. Unlike its victims, according to the Georgia code, the gun used to kill four people in Winder must live on. (Law enforcement agencies are required to do their best to reunite “innocent parties” with weapons that were stolen from them and then used to commit crimes. In a scenario in which a school shooter stole a weapon from a parent who was not subsequently charged in relation to the crime, S.B. 350 could require the gun used in a massacre to be returned to the parent who purchased it in the first place.) Money can be made from guns used in notorious crimes. In 2014, the pistol used in a 1972 assassination attempt on Alabama Gov. George Wallace (D) fetched $28,750. As distasteful as this law is, it contains no enforcement provisions. No fines penalize local governments that ignore it, as many certainly do, including the city of Atlanta, which has an archive of weapons that it cannot destroy but dares not set loose on its streets. And there remains the fear that some damned fool or another will force the issue in court. In the strictest sense, Georgia’s firearm preservation law is symbolic. It is the lowest of low-hanging fruit in the debate over gun safety. And yet precisely because of this symbolic nature, Georgia’s legislature has resisted all attempts to repeal it. I suppose that once a tool has achieved the aura of godliness, dethroning it becomes all but impossible…”