From Weapons to Awareness: Students Take Action Around Gun Violence

Last week, the Hopkins community had the opportunity to work with Episcopal bishop and anti-gun advocate Jim Curry on an initiative aimed at raising awareness around gun safety and violence. Curry’s organization, Swords to Plowshares, focuses its mission on reducing gun violence within the community by asking volunteers to hammer parts of shotgun barrels and turn them into objects like heart-shaped necklaces and garden tools. The organization’s aim is to convert weapons into “tools of life,” which are then donated for the betterment of the community. 

Hopkins Against Gun Violence, a student club, invited Curry to share his organization’s mission at an all-school assembly and later worked with the group on their own metal-working exercise.

“It seemed that people were genuinely interested in the process of metal working gun parts into heart-shaped jewelry,” noted Hopkins School President and one of the club’s heads, Preston Parker ’24.

Parker also spoke about the symbolic and poetic nature of the process which includes turning the barrel into a teardrop with the first hit, and then into a heart with the second. “It was overall very touching and inspirational, while also being informative,” said Parker.