In September, the Civil Guard proceeded to destroy (reduce to scrap metal) "more than 1,000 weapons", which were deposited in the Weapons and Explosives Interventions of the province of Las Palmas. These weapons were transferred to a steel company, where they were reduced to scrap metal through the smelting process. Among those destroyed, the most numerous were shotguns, although there were also rifles, carbines, pistols, revolvers, compressed air weapons, underwater fishing rifles, knives, alarm and signal weapons and other types.
These are weapons deposited for different reasons; those of private property whose owners have requested their destruction, those whose destruction has been decreed by the judicial or administrative authority, those deposited at the disposal of individuals, once the maximum deposit period has elapsed, as well as those included as prohibited for lacking marks, numbers or stamps and other reasons.
This destruction is part of the 'Comprehensive Firearms Control Plan' (PICAF), to comply with national legislation and the United Nations Directive on weapons.
This control plan aims to "prevent the illegal trafficking of firearms, the non-recovery of disabled weapons, the non-transformation of alarm and signal weapons", in addition to those of "compressed air or gas into firearms, and even the artisanal manufacture of devices capable of firing real cartridges", reports the Civil Guard.