We’re less than a week into the National Firearms Amnesty and this happens.
Volunteers sifting through the mountain of left shoes and sullied underwear dumped in a Lifeline charity bin in Toowoomba uncovered what appeared to be a loaded revolver on Monday morning.
The Ruger .44 Magnum revolver was found in its holster in a shoebox, its butt peeking out from in between old sneakers. The volunteer alerted his safety adviser, who called police.
Later, the revolver, loaded with fake brass bullets, was found to be a replica.
Sorry but we are baffled here: who throws their replica .44 Magnum into a charity bin? Charity bins are for the eight copies of ‘Fifty Shades of Grey‘ you received for Christmas in 2011. They are not for things that look like they could be actual for-real weapons.
Lifeline Darling Downs and Southwest Queensland safety adviser Craig Lincoln, who was once a gun club member, reckoned the gun seemed legit:
“It looked pretty real to me.”“It’s the sort of thing we don’t expect to get donated.“We’ve had the occasional knife put in the donation bin and things like that, but never a gun like this.“It’s the first time I’ve ever heard of anything like this happening.”
Toowomba City Patrol Group Inspector Stephen Angus was just bloody baffled by the recklessness of the person who left the gun in the charity bin over the weekend.
“It’s a weapon for all intents and purposes and if it was pointed at you, you would think it was the real thing.“The replica is that good it would be indistinguishable from a working firearm.“Possession of that firearm is illegal and people shouldn’t have it.”
The National Gun Amnesty runs until September 30 – anyone in possession of unregistered firearms and firearm-related articles can hand them in to the cops or a firearms dealer for sale, registration or destruction, without being worried about prosecution.
Angus said: “The gun amnesty does apply which means there is no point endangering or alarming others by placing it in a charity bin.”
Source: The Courier-Mail.
Photo: Supplied.
