A new Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General (OIG) audit questions how FBI and DEA gun parts slated for destruction ended up in a “ghost gun” seized during a criminal investigation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Agency are being accused of storing the pistol parts where they could easily be taken by anyone inside their Quantico, VA training academy.

“We concluded that inadequate policies regarding the destruction of employee issued firearms create significant risks that firearms or their parts could be lost or stolen and used in subsequent crimes without accountability,” said the advisory memo from Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz to FBI Director Christopher Wray and DEA Administrator Anne Milgram.

During the OIG inquiry, Horowitz concluded the items most likely came out of unsecured barrels that both agencies used to store employee gun parts prior to destruction, with the report stating that virtually anyone working at Quantico could access the “gun cleaning room” where the barrels were stored.

“The gun cleaning room was accessible to thousands of employees and contractors at Quantico, including FBI and DEA armory employees, FBI and DEA academy trainers and students, cleaning staff, maintenance contractors, and others. Because the gun cleaning room was in a shared building that also held the Quantico cafeteria, security control measures were limited to a Quantico access card provided to every individual that had access to the grounds at Quantico. There were no safeguards to ensure that the location where the slides and barrels were stored was secured, document who had access to the location or DEA property, or document when the slides and barrels were destroyed,” according to the memo.

In addition, neither agency claims they had set a protocol for handling the parts.

Have you ever been caught doing something wrong, so you took full responsibility for negligence in an attempt to disarm your accuser because you knew the punishment, if any at all, would be far less than copping to something more wilfully nefarious, which was what you were really up to? Yeah, that’s what this sounds like to me.

“Indeed, in the investigation that led to this memorandum, the OIG was unable to identify the individual or individuals who stole the DEA slide and barrel that were later recovered during an arrest,” Horowitz wrote in the memo.

I’m also more than a little annoyed by the cavalier attitude of, “Oh well, we can’t really pin this on any person or group of people, so just be more careful next time.” Try making “mistakes” of a similar nature as a private citizen and you’ll see a whole different perspective on what .gov expects when it comes to accountability. 

This became an issue in 2023 when it was discovered that an unidentified suspect had been arrested with a “ghost gun,” typically constructed at home from kits that did not require a background check or serialization. While investigating the case, the DEA realized the barrel and slide came from one of the agency’s issued weapons that was scheduled to be destroyed in 2019. 

“According to DEA records, the slide and barrel were part of a DEA employee-issued firearm that had been destroyed over three years earlier,” the memorandum stated.

Since completing the report, the agencies claim they have improved security measures and protocols for storing and destroying employee-issued firearms, with the FBI saying they have relocated the unit handling the guns to Alabama as of 2021.

If I sound skeptical, it’s because I am. Consider businesses in the firearms industry that have been steamrolled, from bump stocks to pistol braces, forced reset triggers to 80% kits. The federal government has a way of letting you know that even if they lose in the end, the damage is already done. From pretending that the plain words of the Second Amendment might mean something different to double standards like the Fast and Furious debacle and arming terrorist organizations. If you can give me a reason to trust, I’ll listen to what you have to say in the comments below.