North Pima News

The Phoenix City Council plans to send up to 600 unclaimed firearms, including rifles, handguns, and shotguns to police in Ukraine, a nation under constant threat of attack from Russia, however, Arizona state representatives claim the donation is “unlawful.”

The city council recently voted unanimously to approve the shipment of the weapons, valued at approximately $200,000, to police in Kyiv through a Pennsylvania-based logistics company, DTGruelle, according to a KGUN report.

However, Arizona state Rep. Selina Bliss called the planned weapons shipment “unlawful behavior” in a July 4 tweet. She also shared a letter from her and Rep. Quang Nguyen, requesting the city council “immediately repeal” Ordinance S-50010, which authorizes the Phoenix city manager to enter into an agreement with a private company to transfer unclaimed firearms.

The letter was addressed to Kate Gallego, the mayor of Phoenix, and the Phoenix City Council.

“Unclaimed firearms may only be sold—not donated—and the buyer must be a business that is authorized to receive and dispose of the firearm under federal and state law, and that shall sell the firearm to the public according to federal and state law unless the firearm is otherwise prohibited from being sold under federal and state law,” the letter stated.

“It’s a normal process for us, with these unclaimed weapons, to move them around to other law enforcement agencies,” said Phoenix spokesman Dan Wilson. “And so, the only difference here is that the law enforcement agency is not a domestic law enforcement agency, it’s one outside the country.”

The Department of Commerce previously approved the National Police of Ukraine to receive unclaimed firearms from the United States through DTGruelle, Cooper Payne, a city council spokesman wrote in an email prior to the council vote, according to KGUN.

The proposed plan is a component of a two-year agreement between the city manager and DTGruelle, which recently facilitated the transfer of firearms from Miami to Ukraine, according to NBC Miami.

A provision in the agreement with Phoenix emphasizes that the donated firearms will “only be given to Ukrainian police” and are not intended to support war efforts.

Wilson said, sending firearms overseas could be a first for the city, according to KGUN.

The city could face some legal challenges in its effort to help arm Ukrainian police as Bliss and Nguyen state in their letter that the Arizona Supreme Court recently upheld state laws over the city of Tucson in Brnovich v. City of Tucson, a case that focused on an ordinance from Tucson that gave police the authority to destroy unclaimed firearms.