In the fall of 1992, Stop the Violence, a non-profit community group dedicated to reducing handgun violence, collected guns in a buy-back program that paid $50 for each weapon turned in. The organization raised more than $93,000 and bought 1,782 handguns from people who brought them to collection points at Seattle police stations. On June 16, 1993, some 900 of the collected weapons were destroyed when they were melted in an electric arc furnace at the Western Steel Casting Co. at 145 Horton Street, which provided the service at no charge.

Here, a woman dumps a box of guns into a crucible at Western Steel Casting Co. This may be Kay Godefroy, executive director of the Seattle Neighborhood Group, which helped handle financing for the gun buy-back program.

Caption information source: “An Arms Meltdown in Seattle” by Peyton Whitely, Seattle Times, June 16, 1993, p. B1.