..."On July 18, 1935, Chief James Davis displayed confiscated weapons for newspaper photographers. The caption in the next morning’s Los Angeles Times explained:

A step toward disarmament, at least as far at the underworld is concerned, was taken yesterday as police gathered together more than $2000 worth of weapons, confiscated from lawbreakers, preparatory to dumping the arms into the ocean.

Looking on the heap of weapons are, left to right, Policewoman Rehling, Chief of Police Davis and Policewoman Stevens."...

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A Country Boy Can Survive

Ah yes, Chief "Two-Gun" Davis, one of LAPD's more "colorful" chiefs.

I first met him fictionalized in James Ellroy's novels, but after reading up on him, I realized Ellroy didn't exaggerate much.

Attached Images

Two-Gun Davis.jpg (71.1 KB, 1011 views)

Too bad about the Thompsons. Maybe an officer plucked them off the boat before they went overboard.

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Alan
SWCA LM 2023, SWHF 220

We’ve learned a lot about safe gun handling since then.

I'll bet there were some prewar guns in that pile.

That hurts worse than Old Yeller dying.

I knew someone who was a LEO in San Francisco in the 1960s and said guns were put on a barge and dumped in the bay. All that Hoppes 9 must have hurt the poor fish! But he said all the guns didn’t necessarily go overboard. I remember him mentioning a “gold plated Thompson” in the pile once. He was not a bul......Uhh, exaggerator.

They even have them hanging on the wall in the background like decorations. And that scattergun on the wall all the way to the left. Looks like a sawed off ten gauge.

I would imagine it took the underworld about 15 minutes to replace those...assuming they stopped for coffee.

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John 3:16 .

Looks like a majority may have been Iver Johnsons and low-end Euro SxSs?

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Some Might Say.

It's a shame that many departments destroy seized weapons instead of selling to FFL dealers and using the proceeds to purchase new duty weapons, or other police equipment.

The newly minted NFA act of 1934 made a whole bunch of the firearms shown it that photo illegal.

You can bet the two thompsons were not on the boat when they went to dump them in the ocean if they were dumped at all. Jeff

I agree: Even back then someone in the department would have had sense enough to keep the Thompson's for internal use! Although the FBI back in the 60s did chop up all the Thompson's they had except a couple that was retained for exhibition! What a waste!
Jim

NYPD does the same thing but they also disable the guns before the barge departs for an offshore dumping location. This is to insure that mermaids and perhaps a super species of fish do not attempt to use the things.

Last time I saw a picture of the loaded barge, one of the guns strapped into a bundle was a Savage Model 99.

I've never understood this mentality.

If a person robs a bank and uses a car for the getaway, if caught they don't destroy the car.

If someone sells drugs out of their house and are caught, they don't destroy the house.

This is silliness at an extreme level.

Glad I live in Kentucky where seized guns are sold back to dealers.

I had always thought these destruction programs were a modern development. Shows what I know.

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Possum—The other white meat!

Any ideas as to what is laying across the crates?
Looks blued but I can't make out the capped end.
40 inch hand cannon?

If those Thompsons went into the drink, I'm gonna cry.

This shows how long anti gunners have been using the willing media for emotional photos like these.

Strangely, with most anti gun zealots probably also being greenies, they don't object to dumping guns in the ocean! I think that's not good for oceanic environments.

Maybe the idea is that the guns will eventually become artificial reefs?

Is this the chief for whom the headquarters in LA is named? I think it's the Davis Building? Read that somewhere. It's the bldg. on Joe Friday's badge, and I think Jack Webb's Dragnet shows were somewhat anti gun. If you look into Webb's early life, that's not surprising, but we can't go there on this board.

Oh George....Not the Thompsons !

I think that’s a single shot shotgun with some form of recoil pad on the butt.

Unfortunately not.
But, then, a certain cross-section of humans have always proven to be "skittish". And a certain cross-section of those humans, when unable to solve a problem logically, make themselves feel better by doing "something"... even if that particular "something" is illogical in nature and utterly inconsequential in term of solving that problem.
Humans are funny creatures... and rarely change.
Depressing, huh?

No. PAB (Parker Admin Bldg) was named for Chief Parker, who became chief later. Bldg on the badge (and all LAPD badges) is the LA city hall. PAB was torn down a few years ago and replaced due to earthquake damage.

Davis Center, in the San Fernando Valley, is named for Ed Davis, who was chief much later (post-war) than "2 gun Davis" (above). The Davis Center is primarily for firearms and pursuit driving instruction.
Bob

Bob-

Thanks. I think I recall Ed Davis for something that he accidentally said that we probably can't get into here. But it led to a funny (joke) name for police cars there for awhile.

This is not cop bashing: I think many of those laughing about the car nickname were themselves officers. They may have started it.

You'd think that they would scrap them or sell them for parts, but no, it's easier to just destroy them and just keep on taxing law-abiding citizens to cover the expenses of Law Enforcement.

Oh well, I'd like to think that at least a few of the officers involved rescued some of them and that many others where salvaged.

On the bright side, imagine going scuba diving to find a bunch of firearms just resting on the seafloor!
Heck, imagine pearl divers finding exactly what they were looking for in the form of grips, and they got the bonus of a firearm attached!

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Shooting Comfort is bilateral.

Its funny .. being in the still free state of Arizona .. the pic I am sure is supposed to show an arsenal ... but most of the guys I know have that amount of firearms in their safe!!

There you go using common sense. That doesn't play into the narrative.

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Dan
Ps 96 SWCA 2930 SWHF 524

Interesting mix of firearms. Expensive thompsons with maybe a handful of autos and mostly revolvers and crackbarrel shotguns.

I think some of you are over-interpreting this and projecting present issues and attitudes into the past.

The reality is that throughout most of American history up to the 1960s gun rights simply weren't an issue, and "gun control" fazed nobody and wasn't a political hot potato. For just a random example, there were probably more "gun-free zones" among the Kansas cow-towns of the 1860s to 1880s than you'd find there nowadays, but no one except maybe some drunk cowboys had a problem with that.

I'm aware that there are a number of books written by gun rights activists purporting to show otherwise, but their evidence is thin, to put it mildly.

So to talk about this photo op in the context of "anti-gun", and to even assume the existence of something like the modern anti-gunner in the mid-1930s, is in my somewhat educated opinion unhistorical.

This was simply a publicity stunt, and self-promotion of the Chief's tough image.

In this picture of Chief Davis it appears he is wearing a Distinguished Rifleman or Pistol Shot badge, something that is not earned easily and coveted by those who do.Lots of history behind the Distinguished Badges dating back to right after the Civil War for rifle and after the turn of the century for pistol.I would consider him a serious Marksman.

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SWCA#2288
SWHF#407

Ugh! Pre war Smith & Wesson's dumped in the ocean. I wonder how many were Registered Magnums?

BTW, the new James Ellroy novel This Storm is now available and I am reading it this summer. Interesting plot structure.

Several California counties have had gun "turn ins". I was at my LGS when a lady came in with an early 1960's Walther PP in the box with papers. She was going to "turn it in" but thankfully a gun owner told her it was worth some money. Anyway, I was in the right place at the right time and bought it. What a shame if it was "turned in" and dumped out around the Farralone Islands off the San Francisco Bay!

He likely was. Davis had two sides; unfortunately for him, the dark one ultimately prevailed.

Operationally, he was a reformer, emphasized firearms training and created the Elysian Park facility which led to LAPD developing a true Police Academy. He also began the push to equip patrol cars with radios.

However, politically he ended up mired in corruption, working closely with mayor Frank Shaw, often described as the corruptest mayor L.A. ever had. During Davis' second term as chief in the 1930s, the East Coast mob (Bugsy Siegel, Mickey Cohen) moved into the city, and a swamp of mobsters, city politicians, and police officials led to scandals that in the end forced both the mayor and Davis from office.

At one point in 1937, an LAPD captain actually tried to kill an investigator trying to find info on Shaw with a car bomb.

You may deep six other Thompsons, but you ain't gonna get THIS one, Davis!


John

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- Cogito, ergo armatus sum -

The Chief looks like he's got that Thompson pointed at his head in that picture. Is it me, or are the Chief's eyes too close together?

Well I don’t think that I have any Ex LAPD Guns but I am glad to have an Ex California Highway Patrol Colt Dissapator ban era AR-15 in the herd

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Life NRA, Life TSRA, C&R FFL

Whole buncha break top .32 & .38s.

...I'd be worried about the lady on the right pointing that revolver at the back of his head...and the look in her eye...

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A Country Boy Can Survive

The caption should have read; “Unbeknownst to Chief Davis, who’s mesmerized with the barrel crown of a soon to be destroyed Thompson SMG, a disgusted Policewoman Stevens, wearing her best satin bathrobe and yielding a Colt New Service revolver, contemplates capping him in the cerebellum”!

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"I also cook."

Back in the mid 70s, my PD did not have a Marine Patrol boat (we did have a 100 hp Johnson outboard motor). My shift supervisor had a small Boston Whaler and I had a portable depth recorder so we were charged with disposal of dozens of guns, knives and other items no longer needed for evidence.

We were told to dump the items in at least 300 feet of water in the Gulf Stream off of Fort Lauderdale. We piled the items in a 2 foot high mound in the front of the boat and headed out through the Port Everglades channel. A large fishing boat passed near us and when the people on the flying bridge saw us (not in uniform) and a mound of guns their boat made a radical turn and headed away from us at high speed.

We did not realize at the time that slides, grips (cokes?) and magazines could have been removed prior to the actual "guns" being thrown overboard. Most of the handguns were Saturday Night Specials and many of the long guns had their stocks and/or barrels cut down.

In the 1970s NYC had several well publicized "dumps". Drugs and cash confiscated from criminals was "recycled".

From what I know of LAPD at the time, the "ocean" was really a pawnshop.

My Dad used to get to pick through the sheriffs department “junk” before it went in the Gulf of Mexico.
We serviced their long guns and automatics ( a couple Thompsons and Reisings) 1960’s

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Halfway and one more step