Monument company 'like an estate service for guns'

Most gun businesses sell firearms, but Colorado Gun Services specializes in helping people to legally dispose of unwanted weapons.

Lee and Jenna Heigl, who operate the company out of their Monument home, started Colorado Gun Services in late 2021 to sell firearms acquired by California Gun Services, a company owned by Jenna’s brother, that couldn’t legally be sold in California but could be in Colorado. But the couple soon found a more lucrative niche catering to those who end up with unwanted weapons through inheritance or divorce.

“Gun enthusiasts would have no reason to need us,” Lee Heigl said. “We are a service for people who are not comfortable around guns. We help them legally get rid of guns they don’t want. It is nice to help out a widow with these weapons.”

The business disposes of the guns by selling or destroying them. Colorado Gun Services, though, doesn’t sell guns directly to consumers. The business, which holds a federal firearms license issued by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, sells firearms it acquires to other federal license holders, Lee Heigl said.

“We go to customers’ houses and take the guns they don’t want and do all the paperwork,” Lee Heigl said.

They don’t have to bring firearms to us. Ninety-nine percent of them are widows or someone who is moving out of state and can’t legally possess the gun they own where they are going.

“We are like an estate service for guns. Most of what we handle are very old firearms that are part of collections and they either don’t want any of the guns or at least not all of them.”

Companies specializing in estate sales of inherited items typically are not licensed to handle firearms, Lee Heigl said, so selling guns must be handled separately from the rest of an estate sale.

Colorado Gun Services fills that niche by paying the client for the gun, then reselling it to another licensed dealer while charging the client a fee for handling the transaction. Colorado Gun Services also can destroy guns that are unsafe to use and can’t be repaired, he said.

The couple operate Colorado Gun Services as a side business on evenings and weekends and have completed about 50 transactions in the past year. Lee Heigl works in the import and food packaging industries, while Jenna Heigl works in sales in the medical and pharmaceutical industries.

“We are a family that likes to shoot guns and hunt. Whenever you can do something you enjoy, it doesn’t feel like too much work,” Lee Heigl said.