A California family thought they had inherited an old Colt revolver with a disturbing backstory, but the real legal problem may have been something much more immediate.
According to the Reddit post, a friend’s grandfather had recently passed away. Among his possessions was an old Colt revolver that had apparently been passed down through the family for generations.
The family story was that a relative had used the gun to kill someone back in the 1940s during a feud in a Midwestern state, possibly Nebraska. The poster said they had even found old newspaper articles about the case.
But when they looked closer at the revolver, the “murder weapon” story was not the only concern. The gun’s serial number appeared to have been filed off.
The poster explained the situation in a Reddit thread and asked whether there was any legal way to dispose of the revolver or keep it: https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/88j726/inherited_a_murder_weapon_california/
The family story was creepy, but commenters focused elsewhere
The old murder story was the attention-grabbing part.
A gun allegedly tied to a 1940s killing sounds like the kind of thing people would immediately want to hand over to police. But several commenters said the ancient family story was probably not the main legal issue.
The alleged killer was long gone. The case was decades old. And the poster did not appear to be describing an active investigation where police were searching for the gun.
That did not make the story pleasant. It just made it less urgent than the physical condition of the firearm.
The serial number was the part that made people nervous.
A defaced serial number changed everything
The poster said the revolver did have a serial number at one point, but it appeared to have been filed off.
That detail drew strong reactions from commenters. Several said that if the firearm was supposed to have a serial number and that number was removed or destroyed, possessing it could be illegal.
One commenter made the point that old guns can be tricky because some very old firearms were made before modern serial-number requirements. But the poster later said the revolver was post-1900 and compared it to a Colt New Service, which made commenters much less comfortable with the idea that it never had a serial number.
In other words, the family needed to know whether the gun was truly antique and unserialized by design, or whether somebody had removed the identifying number.
Those are very different situations.
The grandmother wanted nothing to do with it
The poster said the friend’s grandmother was still alive, but she wanted no part of the gun.
That is understandable. Most people do not want to be left holding an old revolver with a possible crime story and a filed-off serial number.
But simply carrying it to a police station could also feel risky. If possession itself might be illegal, the family did not want the grandmother to get in trouble while trying to get rid of it.
That was the awkward spot they were in. They wanted to do the right thing, but they did not know how to do it safely.
Commenters kept saying to talk to a lawyer
The most repeated serious advice was to talk to an attorney, preferably one familiar with firearms law.
That may sound excessive for an old inherited revolver, but the serial-number issue made it different from a normal family gun. If a person possesses a firearm with an obliterated serial number, they may be dealing with something that can bring serious consequences.
A lawyer could help arrange a safe surrender, contact the proper agency, or explain what the family should not do.
That last part matters. When people panic about a questionable gun, they can make bad choices. They might toss it, sell it, drive around with it, or walk into a police station without understanding the risk.
Commenters generally treated the lawyer route as the cleanest way to avoid turning a good-faith attempt to solve the problem into a new problem.
Some suggested confirming the gun’s age first
Not everyone jumped straight to surrendering it.
A few commenters said the family should first confirm exactly what the revolver was. A knowledgeable gunsmith or firearms attorney might be able to tell whether the gun originally should have had a serial number, whether there were other hidden numbers, and whether it qualified as an antique under federal law.
That mattered because not every old firearm fits neatly into modern assumptions. A pre-1899 antique can be treated differently under federal law than a later firearm.
But commenters also warned that the family should not assume it was exempt just because it was old. The poster’s own description suggested it was likely made after 1900.
That made the “maybe it is antique” possibility worth checking, but not something to rely on casually.
Destroying it was not a simple answer either
Some commenters discussed physically destroying the gun or rendering it inoperable.
That may sound like an easy solution. If the gun is the problem, make it not a gun anymore.
But that advice got messy fast. A revolver’s frame is the legally important part, and a person would need to know what they were doing to render it legally destroyed. Cutting the wrong part or only disabling the barrel might not actually solve the possession issue.
There is also the practical problem of handling and transporting a potentially illegal firearm before it is destroyed.
That is why the better advice kept coming back to legal help or a proper surrender process.
A buyback came up, but it had problems
The poster said they could not find a nearby police buyback program.
Commenters still discussed buybacks because they can sometimes offer a no-questions-asked way to surrender unwanted guns. But that was not a guaranteed solution, especially if there was no active program nearby.
Even if a buyback existed, there would still be the issue of transporting the revolver there.
That is the kind of detail people often overlook. If a gun is potentially illegal to possess, driving around with it in the car may not be a great plan.
The family needed a method that reduced risk instead of creating more of it.
Selling it was the wrong direction
One commenter floated the idea of taking it to a pawn shop or selling it if it was antique, but the safer consensus was not to treat this like a collectible until the legal status was clear.
The gun might have value. The backstory might make it interesting to some collectors. The condition might be good except for the serial number.
None of that matters if the identifying number was illegally removed.
Trying to sell a firearm with a defaced serial number could make the situation much worse. It could also push the problem onto another buyer or dealer.
Until someone qualified confirmed the gun’s legal status, selling it was not the smart move.
The family had two separate issues
The thread worked because it had two stories inside one object.
The first story was the family legend: an old Colt revolver allegedly used in a killing during a feud decades earlier.
The second story was the legal one: a firearm with an apparently filed-off serial number sitting in someone’s possession right now.
The first story was unsettling. The second story was potentially urgent.
That is why commenters kept steering the poster away from the old murder angle and back toward the serial number. Whatever happened in the 1940s, the family’s current problem was how to handle a gun that might be illegal to possess.
The safest answer was slow and careful
For the family, the worst move would have been acting impulsively.
They did not need to hide the gun, sell it, throw it away, or walk into a police station without advice. They needed to identify the firearm, confirm whether the serial number should have been there, and speak with someone who understood California and federal firearms law.
That may feel like a lot of work for an unwanted heirloom, but the alternative could be worse.
An old revolver with a family legend is creepy. An old revolver with a filed-off serial number is a legal problem. And for the grandmother who wanted nothing to do with it, the smartest move was not to keep it, cash in on it, or guess. It was to get proper help before touching the next step.
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