At a typical gun buyback, the firearm is turned into the authorities in exchange for a monetary gift. The gun is then taken apart under police supervision and its disembodied metal parts are scrapped, discarding a large amount of serviceable scrap metal with no hope of re-use. Such was the case for Goods for Guns, a gun buyback initiative in Worcester, Massachusetts, until blacksmith John Hayden proposed an alternate solution in 2019. His new initiative, Guns2Gardens MA, aims to transform the scraps of gun metal and repurpose them into gardening tools, which would then be donated to local gardens in the Boston area. He named this organization in recognition of the national organization New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence’s buyback program, named Guns to Gardens.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted Hayden’s initiative, he donated 20 tools that spring, giving them to Youth Growth in Worcester and University of Massachusetts Memorial Garden, amongst others. Now, in the weeks leading up to the spring, Hayden intends to create more tools and expand his team. 

“We’re a hopeful small organization of me and a few friends,” Hayden explained in a Jan. 31 interview with The Justice. He hopes to recruit experienced and novice blacksmiths in order to begin preparing tools for the upcoming planting season. The blacksmith recently started learning the craft himself, recognizing that he is from a family of metalworkers going back to his grandfather’s oyster knife business. 

At the age of 13, his grandfather and a friend found the money to borrow a boat and purchase used blacksmithing equipment. They created oyster knives for fishermen, a prominent industry in their hometown of Crisfield, Maryland. This practice went on to be the town’s largest employer in the middle century, according to Hayden, and stories from his uncles inspired him to start blacksmithing at the age of 40.

Hayden took significant inspiration from a 2018 New York Times article about Michael Martin’s nonprofit organization, RAWtools. RAWtools — “raw” backwards spells “war,” Hayden pointed out — creates garden tools from gun scraps attained from buybacks, and these tools are available for purchase online. Guns to Gardens, the program New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, took inspiration from Martin’s expertise as well. Hayden emphasized that there are branches under RAWtool across the country, including Philadelphia, Colorado Springs and Asheville.

To Guns2Gardens in the Boston area, Hayden contacted Michael Martin, Dr. Michael Hirsh; the Worcester Department of Public Health and Safety’s Medical Director, Dr. Michael Hirsh and the Deputy Chief of Police, Edward McGinn. Through Dr. Hirsh and Deputy Chief McGinn, Hayden connected with Worcester’s Good for Guns buyback program to take in gun scraps necessary for creating gardening tools. The program has existed for about 20 years at this point and after professionals at City Welding finished dismantling the weapon, the metal would be scrapped. Hayden then distributed the scrap metal between blacksmiths in New England, specifically referencing Reverend Jim Curry at Swords to Plowshares and Stonybrook Metal Arts and Sculpture School. He also connected with Aspen Valley Regional High School — students in a metal shop class created sculptures, and around this time, Hayden started forging gardening tools.

Hayden uses designs from Mike Martin and Shane Claiborne’s book, “Beating Guns: Hope for People Who Are Weary of Violence,” to create his gardening and kitchen tools. Open forging events display the creation of the book’s classic tool designs, such as a cultivator and a trowel. 

“I witnessed one of those [demonstrations] in April 2019, and said, ‘okay, this is doable,’” Hayden recalled.

He explained that the process generally starts with cutting the metal into the necessary shape, and heating it in the forge, careful not to melt it. Instead, the metal only needs to be heated up to the “consistency of stiff clay,” so it can be shaped into the tool easily. However, how much heat each piece of metal requires depends on the type of steel it’s made out of. A piece of steel can be softer or harder. For instance, Hayden explained that the steel made for rifle barrels is intended for toughness, making it harder than other types of steel. With this in mind, blacksmiths use three different types of heating methods — a coal forge, a propane burner or an induction heater. Each has their own set of benefits and drawbacks, depending on the project at hand. For instance, Hayden said that a propane burner heats to an even temperature, but it does not get hot enough to melt steel. 

The qualities of steel also impact Hayden’s knifemaking. To make a kitchen chopper, he has to unroll a shotgun out of its cylindrical shape and flatten it, grind the edge of the metal and heat treat it. However, the properties of this metal can change depending on how it is heated and cooled. Hayden emphasized having a “balance between hardness, which you want on the edge to make it sharp and stay sharp, versus toughness, [which] you want on the back so the thing doesn’t shatter.” Further, he explained that the properties of the same piece of metal can vary from one side to the other, depending on how the side is treated.

“Each time we do this, it’s a learning experience,” Hayden said, but provided nothing goes wrong — melting the metal, for example — each tool takes about an hour to create. He will even reuse wooden parts of guns for tools, using a wooden rifle stock and refashioning it to be his trowel’s handle. 

Whether Hayden is creating a trowel, cultivator, kitchen chopper or any piece of equipment, he stressed the importance of keeping a visual cue that reminds the user of the tool’s origins. “You can show that this was a transformation,” he said, showing an angled trowel that retained a decorative rail pattern from the gun’s initial design. Hayden even creates measuring cups by flattening pieces of steel against a swage block, the indentations accurate to the intended measuring size. 

“You can see [the steel] has been folded over once, and folded over a second time, tapered and then with a twist and a curl, just for fun,” Hayden said, describing his measuring cups’ unique handles. 

Hayden donates each product Gardens2Guns MA creates to gardens. He makes it a point not to keep them because he feels the point of the tools is to “put them in the ground and put them in people’s hands.” Hayden has visited these locations in the summer to watch his tools in action during the garden’s harvest. At UMass Memorial Garden, Hayden led a presentation about the initiative and received suggestions for the next gardening tools to create for this spring.

The other local branches under RAWtool do not necessarily focus on creating gardening and kitchen tools. Hayden said that the RAWtools group in Colorado focuses on art and sculpture, having created a gallery of its work and the Connecticut RAWtools program focuses on jewelry. These groups fashion pendants out of shotgun barrels cut into sections, and bent into heart shapes. 

In any case, these helpful and artistic items transform defunct weapons into something new. In doing so, Hayden hopes to further encourage those who possess firearms to turn their guns into these buyback programs who may not have been interested in doing so previously. 

“It gives them pause,” Hayden said. “If they hear that the firearm’s material can be recycled into things that are good, beautiful and nourishing, that does motivate some people.”

To expand his cause, Hayden is looking for anyone interested in taking up blacksmithing — not just experienced metal workers. He pointed to his own experience: starting the hobby later in his life at 40, and understanding that it is never too late to learn something new. 

“It is never too late to touch fire to those around you and hope you spark something that brings joy, and that’s what this is,” Hayden said.