St. Francis of the Guns

Standing in front of the Science Hall at the City College of San Francisco, is a sculpture designed by Benny Bufano. This sculpture, in line with Bufano’s much-loved theme of peace, is unique in that it was made out of 2,000 melted handguns. In fact, some say he used exactly 1,968 guns, a nod to the year Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were killed.

The sculpture, completed in 1969, is a memorial to America’s greatest assassinated leaders (John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, and Abraham Lincoln) and a broader message against violence and for peace. The portraits are done in mosaic, a medium he often used to decorate his public art work. Below the leaders is a children’s choir. The guns were part of a San Francisco voluntary gun turn-in program run by the city. 

Beniamino “Benny” Bufano was an Italian-born sculptor who made San Francisco his home from 1930 until his death in 1970. Bufano served on the SF Art Commission from 1944 to 1948 and has many sculptures throughout the city and Northern California. He was an outspoken pacifist and has several public sculptures in the Bay Area along the theme of peace. He also has several statues to Saint Francis, presumably a nod to the namesake of San Francisco.