GSA missing target on firearm donation program

How did two grenade launchers end up for sale in Florida and Colorado? Who is responsible for trading five Uzis to a gun show? Is the federal agency that handles office supplies orders also qualified to run a firearms donation program?

The General Services Administration’s Surplus Firearm Donation Program came under fire March 2 from members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, who took turns questioning and criticizing the agency for its inability to keep an accurate inventory and status of the firearms within the program.

Oversight Ranking Member Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) called the GSA’s tracking system “haphazard,” “digitally ancient,” and “half-accurate,” and asked how in the past 15 years, nearly 500 firearms went missing and only 25 were ever found.

“Among those firearms that went missing were a set of 130 handguns, five Uzi submachine guns and a pair of grenade launchers,” Meadows said. “In each of these instances the firearms were sold to private gun shops, which are not allowed under the program and appear to have never been recovered. In fact the GSA IG discovered yesterday that two of the missing grenade launchers were located in Florida and Colorado and available for sale to the general public. In some cases the firearms would go missing for as long as a decade … before anyone realized the firearms were not where they were supposed to be. It is beyond unacceptable that these firearms were lost, let alone the fact that they were not recovered and in some cases were missing for years before anyone knew about it.”

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