A nearly 10-pound magnet dangling into the Clinton River in Mount Clemens hauled up something far heavier than scrap metal this week: a World War II-era Browning machine gun. The find belongs to Jason Vanderwal, a Metro Detroit magnet fisherman who has spent five years combing local waterways for buried metal, and it now sits under the supervision of the Mount Clemens sheriff's office while its origins remain a mystery.
Vanderwal, whose magnet carries nearly two-and-a-half tons of pulling force, made the discovery in the Clinton River and immediately called local law enforcement, according to WXYZ-TV. He does not know how the weapon ended up in the river, the station reports, leaving open the question of whether it was dumped, lost, or discarded generations ago. Nolan Sanders, who was on hand for the find, speculated the gun may have been used in a war or once owned by someone famous, though that remains just a guess.
The recovery is far from Vanderwal's first brush with military hardware. The station's report notes he has previously pulled mortar rounds, landmines, and hand grenades from area waters, on top of the 116 firearms he has now recovered altogether during his magnet-fishing career. He plans to post the full recovery video to his YouTube channel on Thursday.
Michigan's Wartime Roots Run Deep
The presence of a Browning machine gun in Metro Detroit waters is less strange than it might first appear. During World War II, General Motors' Saginaw Steering Gear Division became a major military supplier, generating about half a million M1919A4 Browning machine guns after delivering its first gun on March 27, 1941, according to An Official Journal Of The NRA. Assembly lines across the state were rapidly converted for the war effort, and the Saginaw plant earned the nickname “The Gun Plant” as Michigan cemented its reputation as the nation's Arsenal of Democracy.
The Clinton River itself has been woven into Metro Detroit's industrial and social fabric for well over a century. The waterway stretches 83 miles from Oakland County to Lake St. Clair in Macomb County, draining a 760-square-mile watershed that serves more than 1.4 million residents across 60 municipalities, per Wikipedia. Mount Clemens, the county seat where the gun surfaced, grew into a major shipping, industrial, and resort hub starting in the late 19th century, drawing tourists to its mineral bathhouses as “Bath City U.S.A.,” according to the City of Mount Clemens.
Why the Gun May Never Go Back to Him
Vanderwal has expressed hope that the machine gun will eventually be returned to his possession, but federal law stands squarely in the way. Under the National Firearms Act, unregistered machine guns cannot be added to the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record by private individuals after the fact, meaning weapons pulled from public waters generally cannot legally be handed back to the people who found them, according to the ATF. Federal policy specifically prohibits law enforcement from transferring unregistered NFA weapons turned in by the public back to private citizens.
That restriction traces back to 18 U.S.C. § 922(o), which bans the transfer or possession of machine guns manufactured after May 19, 1986, limiting legal civilian ownership exclusively to models registered before that cutoff, per the University of Wyoming Firearms Research Center. A Browning pulled from a riverbed with no registration paperwork has no path onto that registry now, regardless of when it entered the water.
Even setting aside the legal hurdles, the weapon's history may pose its own challenges. Investigators may ultimately have limited information about its past.
A Hobby That Doubles as River Cleanup
Vanderwal describes magnet fishing simply as a way of cleaning trash and debris from waterways, framing his hobby as environmental service rather than treasure hunting. He has said Detroit carries hundreds of years of history, and that the purpose of the pastime is ultimately to help the environment. Michigan does not require a special state license for magnet fishing in public waterways, since authorities generally treat it as voluntary cleanup rather than traditional angling, though trespassing and property rules still apply, per a clarification shared on Facebook.
Vanderwal's work fits into a broader pattern among Michigan's magnet-fishing community. He and fellow members of the Motor City Magnet Fishers have previously extracted between 6 and 10 tons of garbage, scrap metal, and debris from the Detroit River during cleanups at John D. Dingell Park in Ecorse, according to Great Lakes Echo. The cleanups have removed submerged scrap metal and debris from the Detroit River.
Military ordnance is not a one-time surprise for this crew, either. In October 2023, Vanderwal and fellow magnet fisher Randy Burns pulled a live mortar round from the Mahoning River in Warren, Ohio, triggering an emergency response from the local bomb squad, according to a report from WKBN. For now, the Clinton River Browning remains in the hands of the Mount Clemens sheriff's office, its wartime journey into Macomb County waters still unexplained.
