GREENFIELD — Within minutes, all but one of the 273 guns collected during the second Valley Gun Buy Back had been ground up into a small heap of largely unrecognizable twisted gray pipes and debris.
The guns were collected on June 11 at the Greenfield and Northampton police departments in exchange for $50 VISA gift cards and logged into evidence. All were confirmed not to be stolen.
Roughly a dozen guns were sent to the National Armory in Springfield, where a gun specialist determined only one, a Japanese rifle, was an antique. The rifle was saved from the grinder and will become part of the Armory’s special collection.
At around 10 a.m. Wednesday, Gun Buy Back Coordinator Chris Geffin, as well as representatives from the Greenfield and Northampton police departments and the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office, gathered at wTe Corp., a recycling plant in Greenfield, to witness the procedure.
Police officers took the guns from their vehicles and placed them into four rusty metal bins. Each bin was transported to the end of the grinder, where a Liebherr crane hoisted them into the roaring grinder. Dust billowed out from the grinder as the guns were turned into bits.
The hot bits poured like a waterfall from a conveyor belt near the other end of wTe’s lot, clinking and clanking like wind chimes as they settled in a heap on the ground. Once the bits had cooled, Geffin and the others collected some of the more recognizable pieces, mainly cylinders, for souvenirs.
Mary Carey, communications director at the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office, said the office is considering producing an inventory of the guns that were collected.
“A lot of people were very interested in the types of guns,” she said.
As 301 guns were collected at the first Gun Buy Back in October 2013, the second event turned out to be just as successful.
“We didn’t expect the second one to be as big as the first,” Carey said. She added that the office decided to hold the event for a second time after receiving numerous requests from the public.
“It’s eye opening, because we see that there’s a real desire for this,” she said.
Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan said that if enough people donate to the fund for VISA gift cards, another Gun Buy Back should be held again in two or three years.