Oak Bay police have sent a range of firearms, especially rifles, to be destroyed after accumulating them at their Monterey Avenue headquarters.
Most of the 68-firearm haul was turned in by members of the public, said Oak Bay Deputy Police Chief Ray Bernoties.
“Sometimes people take advantage of gun amnesties and turn their weapons in to us,” he said. “They no longer want them, or they inherit them and they don’t want them.”
A few of the firearms were seized by police. There were also some knives and machetes that were in storage.
Bernoties said two firearms thought to date to the late 1800s turned out to be imitations and will be destroyed next time. Sometimes, firearms with potential historical interest are set aside for examination by the Royal B.C. Museum, he said.
The firearms have now been destroyed at an undisclosed metal-recyling location, “where they can be pressed and mangled in such a way that renders them completely inoperable.”
