39 Guns, Grenades, Ammunition Seized From Suicidal 72-Year-Old Man's Home

Guns, grenades and ammunition: it's okay to be a prepper or have a gun or two to protect your family, but what authorities found inside a home Wednesday was enough to start a war.

NBC News reported that police discovered a “cache of weapons” inside a Bustleton home in Northeast Philadelphia. The arsenal, which belonged to a 72-year-old “suicidal man,” included firearms, ammunition and grenades.

Lt. Dennis Rosenbaum said that it was the unstable man's own son, who feared of his father's well-being, that called the Philadelphia Police Department and told officers about the weapons.

“They found more and more weapons throughout the house,” said Chief Inspector Scott Small, as he pointed that there were armaments “in the basement, every room, the attic, crawlspace, living room, dining room, bedrooms.”

Bomb experts were called to the scene after authorities found “what appeared to be a grenade,” but was later declared inactive.

In addition to the grenade, an inactive pipe bomb was also discovered, alongside “at least one” active military-grade smoke grenade.

Another source said that police found a jar of liquid mercury and a total of 10 grenades, but all were inert, or those with no explosive mechanisms.

Inert grenades are also called Practice or Dummy Grenades that copies the exact dimensions of the USGI explosive.

All in all, the police collected 19 handguns and 20 long guns. Most were not identified, but they said that it “can be anything from a hunting rife to an M-16 military type rifle,” said Rosenbaum.

Further investigation suggested that the man also had more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition, but they are “still counting for an official number.”

Rosenbaum also pointed to the fact that nearly all weapons were loaded and that there were components to make more weapons.

Acting Police Commissioner Christine Coulter, who spoke with 6 ABC, believed that the man could have been a “broker or dealer of guns in the past,” but the man's family members said that he was just “an avid collector who had interest in hunting and guns from a young age.”

Although the 72-year-old man has no current charges or cases filed against him, he had been “hospitalized” in the past. Also, officers found a suicide note when they reached the house at around 4:30 p.m.

His family believed that the man is not a threat to anyone but himself. The gun owner will undergo mental evaluation, while his guns will be kept by Firearms Identification Unit of the local police department.

The family still has the right to petition for the weapons, NBC News added. However, if they have no plans to retrieve them, or if the police deem the guns unsafe, “they will be destroyed and melted down after a certain period time.”

Rosenbaum, who talked to the family, opined that they are not trying to get the weapons back and “they just don't want them to wind up in the wrong hands.”