Do guns wear out? Do they end up in landfill? You always hear about guns being sold, but never about what happens to them at the end of their useful life.
Most guns don’t really wear out in a reasonable timeframe. Properly maintained they can last quite a while. My first gun was from the 80s.
For gun owners in the U.S. if we no longer want a gun, don’t want to go through the hassle of selling it, or the gun is unsafe (due to wear and tear or defects), or wherever reason really if we just want to get rid of it we have many options.
We can surrender a gun to our local police, though they may run its serial which might lead to awkward situations if you aren’t certain of its history. There are also gun buybacks which are essentially events where you can discard a gun for cash incentive, and are typically no questions asked. You could also donate it to a local gunsmith for practice. And finally, you could render it inoperable (the ATF has guidelines that basically boil down to “weld the important stuff”) and simply discard it like trash, use it as decoration, or whatever really.
Ultimately they either end up melted down, welded inoperable, or simply discard / forgotten.
They go into your bedroom drawer completely unsecured so your kid can steal and missuse it, as per the American way.
