SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (WXYZ) — Gun buyback events have become more and more popular in Michigan, where police departments provide gift cards in exchange for unwanted firearms.
Supporters of the programs say it helps prevent accidental shootings and suicides by getting unwanted guns off the street by purportedly destroying them. However, according to a recent New York Times investigation, that’s not entirely true.
Outside St. David’s Episcopal Church on Saturday, cars lined up for a gun buyback event. Southfield police collected over 200 guns, finding eight of them were actually stolen. They also collected a sawed-off shotgun and two AK-style rifles.
However, unknown to many people including the organizers was what happens to the guns after they’re collected.
“When people came in our line, they assumed their gun was being destroyed," said The Very Revered Chris Yaw, rector at St. David's Episcopal Church.
Yaw and St. David's have been bringing awareness to gun violence in the community over the years, and have collected 341 firearms during multiple buyback events. He had assumed they were being completely destroyed until he got a recent call from a New York Times reporter.
“He calls me and he says 'Do you know they're being recycled?'" Yaw recalled. "I just went off. I was like 'What? Are you kidding me?' We've spent tens of thousands of dollars on these guns and they’re going back in circulation?”
It turns out only parts of the firearms are being destroyed, but according to The New York Times, many pieces are recycled and sold as gun kits with no background check required.
“I've recently told community members the guns we bring in during this process are destroyed. Well, I learned that's not accurate,” Southfield Police Department Chief Elvin Barren said.
Chief Barren says after his department checks to see if any guns were stolen, they send them to the Oakland County Sheriff's Department to run ballistics. After that, they’re passed to Michigan State Police, which contracts with the company Gunbusters. In a statement, MSP said:
"The Michigan State Police is committed to upholding Michigan’s recently updated gun violence prevention laws and to getting illegal guns off the streets so they cannot be used in a commission of a crime. All firearms surrendered to the MSP are turned over to GunBusters to be destroyed in accordance with the ATF’s acceptable destruction procedures that require the destruction of the frame or receiver so the firearm can no longer be used. We receive video proof of this occurring for every firearm. The MSP is among 950 agencies from across the country that utilize GunBusters’ services."
While GunBusters destroys the weapons for free, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) standards, the company website clarifies that only the ATF-defined frame and receiver is destroyed. The rest of the gun, including the magazine, slide assembly, trigger groups and more, is resold to be used again.
“I would like for those guns they turn over to the Southfield Police Department to be destroyed in their entirety, so no parts of that gun can be used as building blocks for another weapon,” Barren said.
Now, Yaw is calling on state police to change how guns are destroyed, asking them to hold on to all 224 guns from Saturday's buyback until they can be fully destroyed.
“Please hold onto our guns. Wait until we can destroy them and not recycle them,” Yaw said. “We have a great mechanism in this country for the design, the manufacturing, the marketing and the sale of these guns. We don't have a good mechanism for going the other way.”
Yaw says they hope to continue doing more buybacks in the future. They just want a better mechanism and funding in place to make sure these guns are destroyed in their entirety.
