LA buyback event brings in big guns

— Two rocket launchers turned into the Los Angeles Police Department as part of the city’s gun buyback event appear to be anti-tank weapons from the military, experts said.

Police said the people turning them in at the buyback told officers they had family members who were at one time in the military and “they no longer wanted the launchers in their homes.”

Several military experts said one of the weapons was probably a version of the AT4, an unguided anti-tank weapon. It’s a single-shot weapon that a soldier fires and then discards the tubing.

The two launchers - long metal tubes that were once capable of propelling rocket grenades - were turned in along with 2,037 weapons at a gun buyback Wednesday, and exchanged for supermarket gift cards. Detective Gus Villanueva said the launchers were “stripped-down shells” without the technical parts needed to discharge a projectile. “They don’t have capability to discharge anything anymore,” he said.

Front Section, Pages 2 on 12/30/2012

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