Big Surprise: Houston, TX Couple Finds A Dozen Guns in Case Ordered Online
Imagine ordering some military surplus equipment and when it finally arrives, there's an extra dozen fully-automatic M16s. The good news is that the Houston, Texas couple that received the extra box of guns didn't have plans to go on a rampage of any sort. Instead, they did the right thing and called authorities.
Wrong Order
According to a report from KTRK-TV, a Houston couple, who did not want to be identified, makes a side living on buying surplus lots and posting them on eBay for resale. The couple recently ordered 108 storage cases from a government surplus website. They recruited a friend to help unload them and gave him one of the boxes as a thank you.
When he opened the case, he found 12 fully-automatic M-16s inside. All of which still had tags designating the military branch with the name of the service member who handled the gun still attached. They then called the authorities.
Search Warrant
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms got a search warrant and searched the storage unit and the boxes inside but only found the weapons that were originally reported.
Former Houston police captain and Marine, Greg Fremin tell ABC 13,
"It's unbelievable to think military-grade weapons would be shipped in containers across state lines. It's pretty shocking. One of the strictest things we have in the military is weapons accountability. So these weapons are missing somewhere from a U.S. armory, and somebody doesn't know it. That's the scary thing about that for the U.S. military right now. For these boxes to have M16s in them and be shipped to a public destination, not only is it shocking it's a federal crime."
The ATF confirms the investigation but won't confirm how many guns were recovered while also trying to find out exactly how these guns ended up in Houston.
Imagine how bad this could have turned out.