Forsyth County commissioners are scheduled to vote tonight on a proposal to trade two 1928 Thompson submachine guns to a firearms dealer for 88 new Bushmaster rifles.

The guns were given to the county by a member of the Reynolds family —as in R.J. Reynolds —but Noah Reynolds maintains trading the Tommy guns would be going against his father Will Reynolds’ wishes:

County leaders thought the guns were given to the sheriff’s office by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., while former deputy sheriff P. Huber Hanes III said that Will Reynolds gave them to the county. Gordon Herigstad, a California man who researches Thompson submachine gun serial numbers, said his shipping records show that the guns were ordered by and shipped to the sheriff’s office in 1934.

Noah Reynolds wrote: “From a legal perspective, it would appear that regardless of the original provenance of the guns, my father’s purchase and re-gifting would place him as the legal owner prior to the gift back to the county. His intention also seems clear – he cared enough about having the guns be available for the public to view at the Sheriff’s office that he bought them from the County and then gave the guns back.”

Reynolds said he spent several hours looking for a cancelled check to prove his dad’s role in the gun re-gifting but will not have time to go through all of the records by Monday night.
“If absolute legal proof is what you require, I will look further, but you do not really need it to vote to save the guns and put them on permanent display at the Sheriff’s Office,” Reynolds wrote.

Commission vice chairman Gloria Whisenhunt said “(there’s a side of me that wishes we could maybe keep one of them to put up in the new sheriff’s building, but I understand that the deputies need those rifles and what not, and this is a way for us to meet their needs without having to use county dollars to do so.”

By the same token, public safety is a core government function, so it seems to me if the deputies need the rifles, then it’s the proper use of county dollars, as opposed to other ventures in which counties often find themselves investing.

Update: Commissioners delay vote.