Firearms and Ammunition

Plain English Breakdown

The official source material does not provide specific details on how the destruction or recycling of weapons will occur, leaving this aspect undefined.

Firearms Confiscation Rules

This bill changes Tennessee's rules about what happens to weapons that are taken by police as contraband or abandoned.

What This Bill Does

• Allows law enforcement agencies to ask a court for permission to destroy any weapon declared contraband, not just those that are inoperable or unsafe.
• Requires that weapons used as evidence in legal proceedings be kept safe and preserved for up to 180 days after the last related legal event.

Who It Names or Affects

• Law enforcement agencies
• People who have had their weapons declared contraband or abandoned

Terms To Know

Contraband

Items that are illegal to possess, such as certain types of weapons.

Court order

A legal document issued by a judge or court telling someone what they must do.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify how the destruction or recycling of weapons will be carried out.
• It is unclear if this change will affect the number of weapons that are destroyed each year.

Official Summary Text

Present law requires that a
ny weapon declared contraband, secured by a law enforcement officer or agency after being abandoned, voluntarily surrendere
d to a law enforcement officer or agency, or obtained by a law enforcement agency, including through a buyback program,
is
, pursuant to a written order of the court:

(1) Sold in a public sale;

(2) Used for legitimate law enforcement purposes, at the d
iscretion of the court; or

(3)
If certified as inoperable or unsafe, destroyed or transferred to a museum or historical society.

A violation of (1)
–
(3) is a Class B misdemeanor.

This bill authorizes the destruction of weapons that are contraband, a
bandoned, surrendered, or obtained by a law enforcement agency, pursuant to a court order, without necessity of a certification that the weapon is inoperable or unsafe.

Current Bill Text

SENATE BILL 1105
By Campbell

HOUSE BILL 1292
By Powell

HB1292
002012
- 1 -

AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 39,
Chapter 17, Part 13, relative to confiscated
weapons.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE:
SECTION 1. Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 39-17-1317(b), is amended by
adding the following new subdivision:
( ) Destroyed or recycled.
SECTION 2. Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 39-17-1317(g)(1), is amended by
deleting the subdivision and substituting:
(1) A weapon that may be evidence in an official proceeding shall be retained or
otherwise preserved in accordance with the rules or practices regulating the preservation
of evidence. The weapon shall be sold, destroyed, recycled, or retained for legitimate
law enforcement purposes not less than sixty (60) days nor more than one hundred
eighty (180) days after the last legal proceeding involving the weapon; provided, that the
requirements of subdivision (g)(2) have been met; and
SECTION 3. This act takes effect upon becoming a law, the public welfare requiring it.