The question that I have not seen asked is why are these guns being destroyed?
I may be ignorant to some reason why it is not possible, but wouldn’t the best idea be to buy back all of these weapons for use in the military?
I hear our military could use millions of guns and parts, and it would actually justify the cost of the program. It would also be a massive increase on military spending our allies have been asking for and that we are in serious need of.
The juice probably isn’t worth the squeeze. I’m really not sure how you’d make that hot air balloon idea work for one thing. And honestly, getting ahold of guns in post-Soviet countries isn’t exactly hard. There’s also the problem that a lot of people would just sell guns and ammo for money to buy essentials like food. You’re basically just taking a whole bunch of guns and putting them on the black market.
This idea has been tried previously, with concepts like the Liberator in WW2 and the general conclusion was that its just not worth the effort.
You’d be better off funnelling these weapons directly to resistance groups, but if you say you want to do that it kind of tips your hand.