Posted on December 28, 2025

What an impactful series of events this summer as 325 unwanted firearms were destroyed in a unique pilot project in Southeast Michigan; the first ongoing gun buyback in the nation. This Impact Report tells us how lives were changed, firearms were destroyed, and how your donations were used in 2025.

The widespread effects unwanted firearms have on society and people in the U.S. are legion. 1 in 4 firearms in the United States is owned by someone who did not purchase it. Most of these weapons are inherited, gifts, or otherwise come into the possession of people, a percentage of whom, do not want the weapon and want it destroyed. The woman pictured on the cover of this report was a grandmother who had grandchildren moving into her house and wanted the 3 shotguns she had inherited, destroyed.

Disarmory volunteers have met hundreds of these people, like the Oakland County woman below, whose loved one took his life with a handgun that she had in her possession and did not want to see used again. The lessening of stress and anxiety felt by donors is just one reason we do what we do.

Our Work

For the last 4 years Disarmory Ministries, and its predecessor St. David’s Firearm Disposal, have been hosting gun buybacks across Southeast Michigan looking for ways to help those who have unwanted firearms dispose of them safely, conveniently, and economically. To date we have helped safely dispose of more than 1,000 firearms.

During our first two years, 2022 and 2023, we held an annual, traditional gun buyback, working with Southfield law enforcement and our local community to finance, promote, and stage one-day, Saturday events that brought out hundreds of people and their unwanted firearms. Southfield P.D. handled firearms, security, and disposal.

In the summer and fall of 2024, we tried something different: disposing of weapons ourselves, destroying them according to ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) guidelines and widening our approach by offering 6 buybacks across several venues: Southfield, Bloomfield Township, Detroit, Waterford, Pontiac, and Ann Arbor. This approach brought in 334 firearms without incident. We worked closely with the University of Michigan’s Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention (where I serve on the Community Advisory Board), thus generating a paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which is included in this report.

This analysis led us to attempt something new in 2025: the nation’s first continuous gun buyback. Nearly every Saturday from 10am-2pm, from May through November, we held a gun buyback in a parking lot at 2312 Greenfield Road in Berkley, MI. We spent generously on Google ads, relied on local media, and tested the idea that being in the same place at the same time, offering regularity, might be something the community needs. We developed a website, disarmory.org, and invited donors to travel to our site and ‘Book your firearm disposal’ time and date.

We devoted significant resources to getting people to that website. We produced and placed high-quality video advertisements on Google and used them to drive people to our webite. Here’s an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns65VZLpGnA

We contracted with Deuce Digital to determine a) if people are searching the Internet for ways to dispose of unwanted weapons and b) how were they searching? So, we tested a lot of different key words limited to Metro Detroit during the summer months. While we did not find any one key word stood out among others, we have established an Internet presence that continues to help inform people about who we are and what we do.

A detailed analysis, provided by Deuce Digital, on our digital marketing and advertising campaign can be found at the conclusion of this report.

Firearm buybacks are the most effective way society has of reducing the number of unwanted firearms in circulation. Until we find a better system, there remain few options for the many people who have unwanted firearms and wish to dispose of them.

Buybacks take firearms out of circulation that can no longer 1) be found by children, 2) be used by those in mental distress for self harm, 3) found by criminals. They also provide substantive meeting grounds for various people with gun safety interests to meet one another. These events also keep the issue of gun safety relevant and talked about.

We have made information available after these events to the University of Michigan’s Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention. Leaders of this group, Drs. Dave Humphreys and Doug Wiebe, have put forward an academic paper for publication in 2026 based on research done with Disarmory. In 2024 a separate paper was successfully published in the Journal of the American Medical Society, based, in large part, on these efforts. (See Humphreys, D. K., & Wiebe, D. (2024) Disposing of unwanted firearms and firearm injury prevention. JAMA Network Open, 7(10), e2441606)

Funding

Disarmory Ministries is financed by a variety of sources including private donations, grants from non-profit organizations, and municipalities.

Event Dates and Locations

While the bulk of our work happened from 10am-2pm on Saturdays in Berkley, on three occasions we took our chop saws and/or personnel on the road to help others dispose of unwanted weapons: Plymouth, Ann Arbor and Toledo, Ohio.

Berkley MI - From May 2 – December 1, 2025 Disarmory Ministries set up a mobile firearm disposal unit most every weekend at 2312 Greenfield Road in Berkley, except for two occasions we moved this work to the following church parking lots. We disposed of 210 firearms over the summer. 86 Long guns, 120 Hand guns, 4 Assault rifles.

Toledo, OH – On July 19 we assisted in disposing of 3 firearms at a local event.

Plymouth, MI – On October 4 Disarmory hosted a buyback at St. John’s Episcopal Church where 62 firearms were destroyed.

Ann Arbor, MI – On October 11 Disarmory hosted a buyback at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church where 50 firearms were destroyed.

We consider these events extremely successful because they have helped us gather needful data from our community to inform, motivate, and collect unwanted firearms.

Number of weapons successfully turned in in 2025:

Berkley Location – 210 weapons

Ohio buyback – 3 weapons
St. John’s, Plymouth – 60 weapons
St. Aidan’s, Ann Arbor – 52 weapons

Total Weapons Turned In: 325

2025 Stories

We took in 3 ‘suicide guns’ this summer. These are weapons that were used in suicides that had found their way into the hands of the donors. Each of these stories was tragic and moving. So the relief these donors had in seeing these weapons destroyed was quite profound. The sense of peace and feelings of relief are nearly universal among donors in general.

Disarmory has collected dozens of 5-gallon buckets of scrap firearm parts. This has piqued the interest of University of Michigan Architecture Professor and principal at Alibi Studios in Detroit, Catie Newell. She is now using these parts for a full-size, sculpture of a flagpole and flag called ‘Half Staff.'

Donors included several law enforcement officers who were concerned about the viability of firearms they donated. There was also an officer who did not want to turn his guns into his police department because he was convinced someone would steal them. Officers expressed relief that the destruction service was available so that their weapons could be destroyed.

With 1.4 million residents in Oakland County it is estimated that there are 1.7 million firearms. Given data from the Humpreys/Wiebe article cited above, 425,000 of these firearms are owned by non-purchasers, ie people who came into possession of these weapons through inheritance, gifts, etc. It can be assumed that a percentage of these individuals do not care to own these firearms and do not have a way to safely, conveniently dispose of them. To sum up the article’s conclusion: there continues to be a substantial opportunity to assist firearm owners dispose of weapons they do not want.

Appendix 1

Campaign Performance Report

Disarmory Ministries: Gun Buyback Initiative - Prepared by: Deuce Digital

Reporting Period: May 15, 2025 – November 15, 2025

1. Executive Summary

Between May 15th and November 15th, Deuce Digital managed a pilot advertising campaign

for Disarmory Ministries with the dual goal of raising public awareness for the gun

buyback program and driving participation.

Navigating a restrictive digital policy environment, the campaign successfully delivered

937,522 impressions to residents across the region and drove 13,600 clicks to the program

website.

This report validates digital demand for disposal services and outlines the strategic pivots

required to navigate platform policy constraints and structural challenges.

2. Impact & Key Results

While digital metrics (clicks/views) measure the spread of the message, the ultimate measure

of success for this initiative is the reduction of lethal means in the community.

• Total Guns Destroyed: 278

• Total Ad Impressions: 937,522

• Total Interactions: 203,899 (Clicks, Views, Expansions)

• Cost Per Interaction: $0.03

(Note: This highly efficient rate demonstrates that for every 3 cents spent, a resident actively

engaged with the safety message.)

• Video Completion Rate: 48.86%

(Note: A nearly 50% completion rate indicates exceptionally high audience interest in the

message.)

• Total Ad Spend: $6,137.90

Audience Behavior: Mobile-First Discovery

Analysis of device data reveals a critical insight that bridges our video success and search

limitations.

• Data: 96.5% of all clicks (13,135) occurred on Mobile Devices, with only 1.2% on Desktop.

• Strategic Insight: This disparity suggests that demand for gun disposal is latent, not

active. Residents do not typically sit at desktop computers to search for disposal services

(hence the low volume in Phase 2), but they are highly responsive when the solution

is presented to them in their private mobile feeds (Phase 1). This confirms that future

success relies on a Push strategy (Video/Social) rather than a Pull strategy (Search).

3. Campaign Phasing & Strategy Evolution

The six-month campaign was characterized by two distinct strategic phases. This shift

was necessitated by the degradation of creative assets and the platform’s response to

frequency.

Phase 1: Awareness & Video Engagement (May – August)

• Strategy: High-volume YouTube video placement.

• Performance: This phase generated the vast majority of our reach. The video assets

resonated deeply with the target audience, driving awareness at a low cost.

• Outcome: We successfully leveraged the initial video assets for four months, maintaining

steady traffic. However, by late August, audience saturation set in—viewers had seen

the same content repeatedly, causing Google’s algorithms to lower our Quality Score and

throttle delivery.

Phase 2: High-Intent Search Acquisition (September – October)

• Strategy: To combat creative fatigue, we pivoted budget toward Search Ads (text ads

appearing when users search for specific terms).

• The Challenge: We discovered a critical limitation in search volume within our specific

geographic targeting. Even the most direct search term, gun buyback, proved to be a

low-volume keyword in this region. This indicates a search inventory limitation; there are

simply not enough people actively searching for these terms to sustain a high-volume

campaign.

• Cost Implication: This scarcity of viable, high-volume keywords forced us to bid on

broader or more obscure terms to attempt to reach the audience. This scarcity drove up

the Cost Per Click (CPC) and significantly reduced overall reach compared to the video

phase.

4. Challenges & Agency Solutions

Policy Compliance & Content Classification

One of the most significant hurdles was Google’s automated policy system, which frequently

flagged our anti-violence ads as promoting dangerous weapons.

• The Issue: While we initially received strikes for Negative Events and Imagery, Deuce

Digital performed A/B testing to isolate the root cause. We ran identical video scripts

with and without discernible images of firearms.

• The Finding: The strikes persisted even when no guns were visible. We determined the

algorithm was flagging language, not just imagery.

• The Solution: We successfully disputed 2 policy strikes and partially won a third. To bypass

the filters, we implemented a sanitized lexicon strategy, utilizing alternative terminology

(e.g., phonetic approximations or descriptors like device) to maintain ad uptime

without triggering Dangerous Products flags.

Creative Velocity & Asset Lifespan

Maintaining a digital campaign requires a steady pipeline of fresh creative work to prevent

ad fatigue.

• The Constraint: The independent videographer contracted by Disarmory Ministries departed

in late June. As Deuce Digital acts as the media buyer and strategist, not the

content production house, this left the campaign without a mechanism to produce new

video variations.

• Impact: This inability to refresh the creative contributed directly to the performance dip

in September, forcing the pivot to the higher-cost Search strategy.

Negative Keyword Optimization

During the Search Phase, Google’s Broad Match algorithm attempted to automatically

expand our reach by serving ads on related terms.

• The Risk: The algorithm failed to understand the disposal-focused intent, serving our

ads to users searching for acquisition-focused terms (e.g., How to get a concealed carry

permit).

• The Fix: Deuce Digital employed a diligent manual review process. We caught these

irrelevant expansions quickly and added them to a Negative Keyword List, preventing

wasted spend on audiences looking to acquire rather than dispose of weapons.

Attribution & Data Fidelity

While we successfully drove traffic, tracking confirmed online reservations proved difficult

due to two factors:

1. User Reluctance: Gun owners displayed a distinct reluctance to submit personal information

via an online form, likely due to privacy concerns.

2. Platform Limitations: The website provider (UENI) offered a rigid infrastructure that

prevented the correct firing of conversion tracking tags.

3. The Pivot: Recognizing these barriers, Deuce Digital updated the ad copy and website

verbiage to explicitly encourage walk-ins without a reservation. This ensured that the

friction of the website did not prevent residents from utilizing the service.

5. Conclusion & Recommendations

The Disarmory Ministries campaign has proven that there is a receptive audience for gun

disposal in Oakland County. However, scaling this program requires navigating a hostile

policy environment and ensuring creative agility.

For future funding cycles, we recommend:

1. Investment in Creative Agility: Allocating funds specifically for freelance video editing

to ensure fresh assets are available every 3-4 weeks.

2. Walk-In Focus: Leaning into the anonymous nature of walk-in events in digital messaging

to bypass user privacy concerns.

3. Website Migration: Moving away from UENI to a platform that allows for robust data

tracking, ensuring we can provide the Board with even more granular ROI data in 2026.

4. Strategic Realignment: Donor-Centric Advertising: We recommend shifting the primary

focus of paid ads from service promotion to fundraising. Advertising for donations

to support community safety avoids the Dangerous Products policy triggers that

plagued the buyback ads. This approach generates the revenue needed to grow the

program while relying on earned media and community partnerships to drive actual

gun turn-ins.

Refund Policy