Connecticut Inmates Will Turn Firearms Into New Gardening Tools

By Micah Rate

A city in Connecticut is putting a new spin on its gun buy-back program. Rather than having people turn over illegally possessed firearms and having them destroyed, the New Haven Police Department, along with the Newtown Foundation, will have inmates turn the weapons into gardening tools.

The guns themselves will not go straight to the inmates. First, the police department will send the firearms to a metal sculptor who will render the weapons unusable. Once destroyed, the gun parts will go back to the Department of Correction where inmates will create the tools.

From the New Haven Register:

This year, the collected firearms will be given to Gar Waterman, a local metal sculptor, who is going to chop down the firearms and render them destroyed. The destroyed pieces then will be turned over to the Department of Correction where volunteer inmates will forge the pieces into gardening tools, under the tutelage of Raw Tools, a Colorado-based nonprofit that turns donated weapons into garden tools, according to Hartman.

When Jose Feliciano, warden of the New Haven Correctional Center, first got the call about bringing guns in and giving them to inmates, he was skeptical. However, once he then read up on Raw Tools …Read the Rest

Source:: Bearing Arms