Hero-Mayor Cory Booker Can Turn Guns into Bracelets

Cory Booker’s always been something of a shapeshifter. He’s a Stanford grad and Rhodes Scholar who decided to live in a public housing complex for a decade. He’s a mayor who moonlights as superhero, shoveling snow banks and rescuing citizens from burning homes. He’s even morphed from a gubernatorial to senatorial candidate in a matter of months. Now, he’s transforming Newark’s lethal weapons into pretty jewlery.

The always-innovative mayor’s new project, The Caliber Collection, [get it?] features utilitarian-chic bangles and cuffs made from the steel of 250 confiscated guns and brass of shell casings swept from the ground of crime scenes. Each piece has the weapon’s original serial number stamped into the hammered metal that wouldn’t look out of place on the arm of the Alexander Wang-wearing set.

See, the government isn’t rounding up all our guns in order to turn them on us. They’re just melting them down into bangles! The Collection sells its stuff for $150-$375, and has raised $20,000 for Newark’s gun buyback program, which will allow the city the purchase even more guns to melt down in the future. [The Daily Beast]