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Traded-in weapons melted for good cause
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Traded-in weapons melted for good cause By Matt Holsapple, Journal and Courier RECYCLING: A rifle catches fire Thursday as it hanges from a bag waiting to be melted at Nucor Corp. near Crawfordsville. The weapons were exchanged for cash in the Gifts for Guns program, sponsored by Wabash Avenue Presbyterian Church. Crawfordsville police brought the guns to Nucor to have them melted down. (Photo by Michael Heinz, Journal and Courier) CRAWFORDSVILLE -- One last gun dangled momentarily, slowly swinging in the swirling flames before dropping into a giant furnace. Below, the first 50 firearms melt into a 130-ton pool of molten steel, glowing so brightly it looks like a vat of pure light. The gun was the last remnant of 51 firearms received earlier this month through the Guns for Gifts program, sponsored by Wabash Avenue Presbyterian Church in Crawfordsville. The program paid $50 for each gun from local residents. On Thursday afternoon, representatives from the church and the Crawfordsville Police Department watched as the weapons were dropped into the recycling furnace at the Nucor Corp. steel plant in Crawfordsville. John Ferriola, the plant's general manager, said he was glad that Nucor could be a part of helping make Montgomery County safer. "I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where there's far too many guns," Ferriola said. "Anything that can get more guns and violence off the street is a good thing." Crawfordsville Police Chief David Johnson said he was glad to see the unwanted weapons destroyed so they would not land in the hands of criminals or be involved in accidents. He was particularly glad the county could be rid of several sawed-off and otherwise altered shotguns that were part of the collection. "Those are a criminal's delight," he said. "Now, there's no misuse of them." The guns were added to the rest of the scrap metal in one of Nucor's furnaces. Each of the plant's two furnaces is capable of melting 130 tons of scrap steel every 51 minutes, amounting to more than 2 million tons of metal a year. Nationwide, at Nucor's 10 plants, the number exceeds 14 million tons. According to Sam Commella, the plant's melting and casting manager, that makes Nucor the biggest recycling center in the country, and maybe the world. "We think it's the biggest recycler in the world, but we haven't quite finished our research yet," Commella said. The pieces of scrap -- everything from industrial equipment to abandoned cars and washing machines -- are dumped in the enormous furnaces. Three carbon electrodes are lowered into the scrap, and 65,000 amps of electricity raise the temperature of the furnace higher than 3,000 degrees. Aleeta Wilson, a member of the church's missions committee who helped organize Guns for Gifts, was glad to see the guns destroyed. She said the program was designed as a service to people who had guns they did not want, not as an effort to take a gun from someone who still used it or wanted to keep it. "We thought of it as a service to the community. That was our approach," Wilson said. "We weren't targeting hunters. We just offered a service." Many of those who turned in guns were people who had received them as gifts or as part of an inheritance. Other people had used their guns in the past, but were now concerned about children finding and playing with them. Guns for Gifts was modeled after similar programs in urban areas. It is believed to be the country's first gun exchange held in a rural area. http://www.lafayettejc.com/news20011221/200112215local_news1008914050.shtml
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