State police will no longer send firearms to firm that sold gun parts for profit

Lansing — Michigan State Police will begin using a scrap metal processing facility in Jackson to dispose of excess firearms following pushback on a previous system where parts of the guns could be resold in kits.

The state police agency announced the new disposal program Tuesday after a New York Times investigation found the Missouri-based gun disposal firm the department used would repurpose parts of the gun to be resold as kits that could eventually be used to reassemble a separate weapon. The agreement between the Michigan State Police and GunBusters required the company to destroy the frame and receiver only.

The state police paused the program in January as it explored other options for disposal of firearms collected in gun buyback programs and law enforcement activity.

“This new method will improve public safety by ensuring all parts of a firearm are destroyed, never to be used again, and continue to meet the ATF’s acceptable destruction procedures, as we always have,” MSP's director, Col. James F. Grady II, said in a statement.

The new procedure will cost some additional money for transportation of the firearms and record keeping, but the agency will not be charged for the guns' destruction. Instead, the pulverized metal will be melted down for flat roll steel coils, the agency said.

The change was lauded by St. David's Episcopal Church in Southfield, which had expressed significant concerns about the previous program and its use to dispose of firearms collected through the church's gun buyback program.

The church, which was under the impression firearms were completely destroyed when sent to the MSP, collected 224 guns at a December 2023 buyback program before the New York Times investigation was published.

“This is a big step in public safety for our state and corrects a procedure that was as misleading as it was dangerous: Guns said to be destroyed should be completely destroyed," said the Rev. Chris Yaw.

Michigan State Police disposed of a total of 11,582 firearms in 2023 before the process was called into question. The agency had contracted with GunBusters since January 2020.

GunBusters resells gun grips, magazines, slide assembly and trigger components from the weapons that law enforcement agencies from across the country send it for destruction. The company uses a machine to pulverize the frame or receiver of each firearm it receives from law enforcement agencies across the country.

GunBusters requires payments from law enforcement agencies for a complete destruction of the firearm.

MSP earlier this year initially argued the disposal method met the letter of gun-destruction requirements laid out by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which was focused primarily on destruction of receiver and fram.

But the ATF responded that the process wasn't considered a best practice, which called for the destruction of the entire firearm, "including all unregulated parts.

""This is particularly true given the increasing criminal use of untraceable privately made firearms ('ghost guns'), which are often assembled with used firearm parts," Kristina Mastropasqua, a spokesperson for ATF, said in December.

eleblanc@detroitnews.com