New Haven Gun Buyback Sets New Record

From the New Haven Police Department: Five years and two days after the horrific mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School, The New Haven Police Department, Yale New Haven Hospital, Gun By Gun and The Newtown Action Alliance hosted a sponsored Gun Buy-back event at the New Haven Police Academy, 710 Sherman Parkway.

We are proud to once again partner with our driving force, the Injury Free Coalition for Kids of New Haven and its director, Dr. Pina Violano and Yale New Haven Hospital. This program is a determined effort to make New Haven safer by taking dangerous weapons off the streets and potentially out of the hands of those who perpetrate crimes.

New allies for us, and those responsible for a renewed sense of urgency are Steve Yanovsky, of the Newtown Foundation & Newtown Action Alliance. The foundation’s message and mission is focused on positive cultural change, and the passage of sensible gun laws in this country.

An additional $3,100.00 in funding for this buy-back event had been raised by gun-by-gun, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization, locally orchestrated by Rohan Naik, and dedicated to take meaningful action towards preventing gun violence.

The Buy-back provided participating community members with thousands of dollars in gift cards in exchange for turned-in working firearms.

Collected at the buy-back were four Derringer style single/ double-shot handguns, seventy-four handguns and sixty long-guns (rifles & shotguns), including two assault type weapons. Seventy people trusted the program’s promise of anonymity and braved snowy streets to turn in the unwanted guns.

Chief of Police Anthony Campbell, Assistant Chiefs Achilles ‘Archie’ Generoso, Racheal Cain, Otoniel Reyes and Luiz Casanova praised not only the efforts of the PD, but the many project partners, donors and our community members in the success of this day’s haul. Our record of 103 guns taken in in the December, 2016 buy-back was shattered with an additional thirty-five being turned in this year. “That’s success”, said Campbell.

Though the buy-back has ended, the effort is just beginning.

The initial stages of a documentary is underway, videotaped for the NHPD by photojournalist and producer Adam Michael Kuhn.

We’ve coursed a new path for the collected guns – one far beyond simple obliteration. The firearms collected at today’s buy-back will be destroyed by cops under the tutelage of a local and renowned sculptor – Gar Waterman.

Providing hands-on training and guidance for the next step are members of the effort’s most distant partners – Executive Director Mike Martin and his enthusiastic staff from Colorado based RAWtools, Inc.

The destroyed pieces will then be given to volunteer members of Connecticut’s prison inmate population. Under the watchful eye of Warden Jose Feliciano and staff from the CT Department of Corrections, these inmates will use the training they’ve received from Martin and RAWtools to forge the pieces into gardening tools.

Come Spring, some of the hand-created tools will be donated to New Haven Public Schools that support agricultural programs including gardening. The tools will be used to plant and cultivate vegetable gardens. The crops will be harvested and donated to area soup kitchens and those less fortunate, will be fed a nutritious meal. “SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES”.

Photos courtesy of the New Haven Police Department