For some reason, the link isn´t working, but I found it here:

http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/valuable-wwii-gun-police-buy-back-022155231--abc-news-topstories.html


Perhaps LCom staff can fix ?

"If the gun had been in the closet loaded, any second you could hit the wrong level (sic) and discharge a fatal round," he said of the Sturmgewehr 44."

Words fail.

ABC articles posted at Yahoo go bye-bye.

If the new link doesn´t work, here is an article and good photos at the Daily Mail [UK]:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2245749/Officers-stunned-woman-drops-40-000-WWII-German-rifle-destroyed-police-buy-program.html

I had a police officer who was employed by a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pa in one of my summer classes, about a decade ago. And he came in to class one day, his head hung in despair, as he told me that he had just taken confiscated guns to a steel mill in pittsburgh, where the guns were melted down.
And he was in despair because one of the guns was a purdey shotgun. (only fellow gun enthusiasts will appreciate the despair he felt. A Purdey shotgun is the finest in the world, made in England by master craftsmen, where several thousands of hours of labor are spent to make just one of them. And at the time of this story, the minimum price of a Purdey was in the 50,000 dollar range, with a waiting time of several years.)
I tell the story because in many of the gun buyback programs, the city leaders hate guns, and will melt down any gun, including a purdey or this WWII gun.

#4, I saw the word "Purdey" and said "Ohmigawd" before reading anything else. I felt--feel--sick. Like burning a Renoir.

My 18 year old will love this. He´s becoming quite the gun expert... he´ll be jealous. He is the proud owner of a WW2 era Mosin Nagant, his first rifle.

Sounds like a lot of illegal gun transfers going on in Hartford. Did the cops run background checks on the sellers, or report multiple purchases by the PD?

If I came across a Sturmgewehr 44 in the back of my closet, I´d clean it and keep it around for emergencies...like a union ´gathering´. It had an uncommon caliber as I recall, though, which would be an issue.

Sturmgewehr was the German answer to the US M1. It is a semiauto rifle with a 20 round magazine. It´s an 8mm caliber, same as the mauser carried by most german soldiers. It is not a machine gun. Had all German soldiers carried the sturngewehr things may have been different. A rare fine indeed. Should be donated to a WWII museum.

Sounds like they did the right thing. There will be museums that will pay dearly for this.

The StG-44 is a select fire rifle with a 30 round magazine...it most definitely is a "machine gun" under Federal Law, #10. As others have said, most likely it was a vet bring-back that was never properly registered in the NFA Registry and is now contraband.