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Zeroing In: Wondering what the new year will bring to Luzerne County

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Nativity portrayed at St. Nicholas Church

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; More than 100 different types of guns, knives, bows and other weapons were on display in the jury assembly room of the Luzerne County Courthouse Saturday.</p><p>There were even medieval looking swords and maces.</p><p>The county is in the process of selling the guns, knives, bows and, yes, even the swords and maces.</p><p>&#8220;The purpose of (the display) was it&#8217;s county property,&#8221; said Luzerne County Sheriff Brian M. Szumski. &#8220;We wanted everyone to see the county property that we&#8217;re selling, if they wanted to, prior to making a proposal to purchase it.&#8221;</p><p>The weapons were displayed for a half-hour.</p><p>Szumski said the weapons were all obtained through Protection from Abuse Orders, which ordered the seizure of weapons for a certain amount of time before they were allowed to be returned to the owners.</p><p>&#8220;We sent out notices to the actual owners of the property notifying them that we would be seizing their property and turning it over to the Sheriff&#8217;s Department if they did not make a claim to it,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It was posted in both the paper and Luzerne Legal Register, and then we had a public hearing at which time they could have presented evidence that the firearm was theirs and they could take it back.&#8221;</p><p>The weapons on display were not claimed by their owners.</p><p>Although the weapons will be for sale, they all have to be bought at once by the same buyer. Szumski said either an auction house, antique dealer or sporting goods company would most likely be making the purchase.</p><p>&#8220;What they&#8217;re going to do is they are going to submit a proposal to the Luzerne County Purchasing Office and those proposals will then be reviewed,&#8221; he said.</p><p>In order for a person to view the weapons on display, they first had to go through a background check through the Luzerne County Sheriff&#8217;s Department.</p><p>&#8220;The background checks are extremely important in my opinion,&#8221; said Szumski. &#8220;Although we did make this available to the public so that anyone can come in, we also didn&#8217;t want a person with criminal records. We didn&#8217;t want a person coming in looking to do harm to someone else by coming in with all of these firearms.&#8221;</p><p>Szumski said all who submitted background checks were cleared to view the weapons.</p><p> Szumski said he would like to do this again to help clear out all of the weapons obtained through PFAs in the Sheriff Department&#8217;s storage room.</p><p>&#8220;As long as I am sheriff, we will probably do this annually or bi-annually, just because of the tight space,&#8221; he said.</p><p>&#8220;We run out of space extremely quickly.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Handguns at the Luzerne County Sheriff's gun preview sale at the Luzerne County Courthouse on Satuday. (Pete G. Wilcox|Times Leader)</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/web1_gunsale01.jpg</photo0><caption0>Handguns at the Luzerne County Sheriff's gun preview sale at the Luzerne County Courthouse on Satuday. (Pete G. Wilcox|Times Leader)</caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/web1_gunsale02.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Luzerne County Sheriff Brian Szumski and the numerous confiscated guns up for sale by the sheriff's department during Saturday's preview at the courthouse. (Pete G. Wilcox|Times Leader)</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/web1_gunsale02.jpg</photo1><caption1>Luzerne County Sheriff Brian Szumski and the numerous confiscated guns up for sale by the sheriff's department during Saturday's preview at the courthouse. (Pete G. Wilcox|Times Leader)</caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta></subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jimmy Fisher</p><p>jfisher@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Jimmy Fisher at 570-704-3972 or on Twitter @SD_JimmyFisher</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Luzerne County Sheriff’s Department holds public viewing of firearms, bows, knives and other weapons