Michigan vows to destroy gun buybacks after resale controversy

Michigan will no longer allow guns intended for destruction to be sold as parts online — a change prompted by public anger over revelations that firearms turned in through buyback programs were not destroyed as promised.

Michigan State Police, responsible for collecting unwanted firearms from local law enforcement, said Tuesday that the weapons would now be crushed “in their entirety” and melted down at a scrap metal site. The agency said it removed 11,582 weapons last year.

The policy change came after The New York Times reported in December that communities across the country that claimed to be taking guns off the streets through buyback programs and eliminating confiscated or surplus guns were allowing them back on the market. Cities handed the guns over to companies that had a single regulated part containing the serial number; the companies then sold the rest of the parts online, often as nearly complete weapon sets.

Some law enforcement officials and gun control advocates worried that the kits were being used to build so-called ghost guns — untraceable homemade firearms.

The largest of the cleanup companies, Gunbusters of Missouri, said it had seized more than 200,000 guns from about 950 law enforcement agencies over the past decade; The Michigan State Police was the largest customer. After the Times investigation, community leaders and government officials in Michigan raised objections to the arrangement, and state police said in January that they would rate it againleading to the announcement on Tuesday.

“This new method will improve public safety by ensuring that all parts of a firearm are destroyed and never used again,” said Col. James F. Grady II, director of the state police.

Outside of Michigan, members of Congress have also raised concerns about the inability to ensure that guns collected through buyback events are not completely destroyed, contrary to what the public has been led to believe. In a typical buyback, people are encouraged to turn in firearms to police in exchange for a gift card or other incentive.

Citing the Times article, Reps. Dan Goldman of New York and Gabe Amo of Rhode Island, both Democrats, said wrote a letter to ask the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to take steps to stop the resale of gun parts. The agency’s position was that, under the law, discarding just that one regulated part — called the receiver or frame — is enough to consider the gun inoperable and destroyed.

“We are concerned that current ATF guidance on the destruction of firearms does not address this regulatory gap,” the congressmen’s letter said.

Although the remaining gun parts are not subject to regulation, the ATF issued a statement in December saying the “recommended best practice” is for law enforcement agencies to “destroy the entire firearm, including any unregulated parts.”

“This is particularly the case given the increasing criminal use of untraceable, privately made firearms (‘ghost guns’), which are often assembled from used firearm parts,” the statement said.