Guns to plowshares: Santa Fe buyback repurposes old firearms
May 11—An unusual kind of drive-through appeared on Santa Fe's south side Saturday morning.
As if their drivers were waiting to order from a busy fast food restaurant, cars lined up down the block, inching toward the Santa Fe Municipal Court's parking lot.
When they entered the lot, though, the drivers were dropping something off — not receiving a meal. They opened their trunks to reveal caches of firearms — pistols, rifles, shotguns.
After turning over the weapons to police, the drivers continued on their way, now armed with gift cards of up to $250 per gun relinquished.
It was the 18th "Guns to Gardens" buyback sponsored by New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, said Miranda Viscoli, the organization's co-president. Put on in partnership with the city of Santa Fe, the Santa Fe Police Department and the First Judicial District Attorney's Office, the event was intended to collect unwanted guns and render them unusable — before repurposing the scraps into gardening tools, musical instruments and more.
"Our anonymous survey shows the majority of people who are participating do so for safety reasons — a teenager with suicidal ideation, a wife whose husband was a hunter [and] now has dementia, a lot of people inherit guns," Viscoli said.
She added, "So this gives everybody that opportunity to get rid of that unwanted firearm."
District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies was on gift card duty Saturday morning. She darted between the line of cars, handing out gift cards to Target, Amazon, Walmart and other ubiquitous retailers after the drivers had surrendered their guns.
The line, the district attorney said, indicated there was "pent-up demand" for a safe spot to get rid of firearms.
"If it saves one life — if it keeps one person from harming themselves or others — then it is absolutely worth it," Carmack-Altwies said.
There is some disagreement over whether gun buybacks actually reduce incidences of gun violence. One review of the research conducted by RAND noted empirical evidence on the effectiveness of gun buybacks is "limited and mixed at best," in part because of the difficulty of measuring the impacts of local programs, but the events can serve as opportunities to educate residents about safe firearm usage and storage.
Viscoli said she believes in buybacks — and she's heard from participants for whom they made a big difference. It assures them that the weapons will never hurt anyone.
"People are so filled with gratitude," Viscoli said. "They know that the minute they drive off, that gun is under the blade of a chop saw."
As drivers circled through the Santa Fe Municipal Court parking lot Saturday, police officers removed any ammunition from the surrendered guns and checked a database to ensure the firearms weren't stolen.
From there, the guns went to a small team of volunteers for decommissioning. Using chop saws, they made at least three cuts in three different locations on each weapon.
"By the time we're done, we've rendered them useless. ... They can't be used as parts. They become scrap material," said Jeremy Thomas, one of the volunteers.
That scrap material, however, will be reused. Thomas teaches blacksmithing students at RFK Charter School in Albuquerque to transform pieces of the weapons into functional objects.
Pieces of many of the guns collected Saturday will eventually be sold as gardening spades, hoes and mattocks — the proceeds from which go toward the purchase of buyback gift cards, Viscoli said. Students have even repurposed parts of the weapons to build a functional xylophone and electric guitar.
"As I work with those students, it's really talking to them about how everything has potential," Thomas said. "And a firearm ... as a firearm has one potential. But once we make it raw material, it has a different potential."
