PD has Historic Great War Machine Gun Frozen in Limbo

A small town police department in Ohio has had a rare machine gun in its collection for years and wants to pass it on to a museum but can’t. Sheffield Lake, Ohio (pop. 8,950) is about 35 miles west of Cleveland on the shores of Lake Erie. The town’s 12-officer police department has kept an old belt-fed machine gun in its basement since 1989. Found during a welfare check, the circa 1918 Colt Vickers WWI aircraft machine gun was impounded because it was not legally registered with the ATF, and the agency has had it ever since. The Colt Vickers in question. (Photo: Sheffield Lake PD) And, while the department would be okay passing it on to a museum intact, that isn’t a thing right now. Around 2022, SLPD contacted the ATF, which advised that it would have to be destroyed or demilitarized by cutting it, even if it were donated to a museum. “Given its historical significance, that was not an option we were willing to pursue,” the SLPD noted. Next they tried the National Museum of the U.S.…

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