Jamaica Plain People
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. 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. 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.