Michigan State Police are suspending their contract with a firearm disposal company, GunBusters, following a New York Times exposé that revealed the firm was reselling parts of weapons meant to be destroyed. According to The Detroit News, Michigan has used the services of the Missouri-based company since 2020 for dismantling seized or surrendered guns, with only the receiver or frame being pulverized — as per federal law.
The questioning of this practice arose after the discovery that while the receivers or frames of these weapons were destroyed, other gun parts were being salvaged by GunBusters and sold as kits, potentially allowing for the assembly of operational weapons. Despite being touted as free, GunBusters charges law enforcement agencies for the complete destruction of a gun, rates which the Michigan State Police had previously not been paying. In 2023 alone, state police sent 11,852 guns to the firm, as reported by Detroit Free Press.
In the wake of these revelations, Shanon Banner, a spokeswoman for the Michigan State Police affirmed the search for alternative methods for firearm disposal is underway. The hiatus in their partnership with GunBusters is to reassess and ensure that guns turned in for destruction do not end up back in circulation through any means. The emerging controversy has spotlighted the fine line between complying with the legal requisites for gun disposal and ethical responsibility in ensuring weapons are fully decommissioned. "The ATF-defined receivers/frames are destroyed and video recorded for the department," GunBusters declares on their website, highlighting their procedure's alignment with federal standards.
At a local level, other law enforcement agencies in Michigan have adopted alternate approaches to handling their out-of-service firearms. For instance, the Traverse City Police Department and the Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Office both facilitate a process where retiring officers can purchase their duty firearms, a practice that has long been a tradition in the departments. "This was recently done to replace the nearly 20 year old duty handguns that we were using," Captain Brandon Brinks of the sheriff's office told the Cleburne Times-Review.
Meanwhile, Reverend Chris Yaw of St. David's Episcopal Church, which surrendered 224 guns in a December buyback program, voiced frustrations over the lack of transparency on the disposal process with his community. "The big reason people came in line and gave their weapons to us is to be destroyed, not recycled," he told Detroit Free Press, as an organizer of the event. The church, along with others, is reconsidering the effectiveness of its participation in gun buyback programs under the current disposal model.
