Guns2Gardens: Stonybrook Metal Arts Makes Garden Tools Through Gun Buyback Program

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The Stonybrook Metal Arts & Sculpture School has given new life to guns handed in through gun buyback programs -- by making them into garden tools.

Hand tools being used by volunteers in the Egleston Square Peace Garden cleanup in August 2019 were made through the Guns2GardensMass program.

This past August the tools hit the soil during the Egleston Square Association's Peace Garden cleanup.

The tools were created through Guns2Gardens Massachusetts organization, co-founded by Jamaica Plain resident and novice blacksmith John Hayden, Director of Stonybrook Fine Arts (StonybrookMASS) Anne Sasser, and Co-Founder of Prospect Hill Forge Carl West.

Jamaica Plain resident John Hayden, co-founder of Guns2Gardens (Photo guns2gardens.org)

Hayden explained how the guns go from a buyback program and into the hands of blacksmiths.  After a gun owner brings a firearm to a gun buyback event or police station, police then supervise as skilled metalworkers disable the firearm by sawing it and crushing it into scrap. Then the metal and wood scrap is distributed by Guns2Gardens to artisanal blacksmiths and metalworking educators, said Hayden.

"We’re creating a new community of action here in Massachusetts dedicated to reducing gun violence by reforging voluntarily donated firearms into useful garden tools and meaningful sculpture," said Hayden. "We are now in the process of making garden tools, sculptures, and jewelry from this material, and planning workshops where teens or adults can take classes at our partners Stony Brook MASS in JP."

Walter Clark

Some of the tools include a welded leaf trowel by Walter Clark of StonybrookMASS, as well as a leaf hoe by West.

While Guns2Gardens hasn't forged a relationship with the city of Boston yet, gun owners can still dispose of a firearm. You can learn more lease more about disposing of a firearm in Boston by clicking here.

Garden tools created by blacksmiths working with the Guns2Gardens organization.

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