NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
The New York-based startup, which Thum launched with his wife in June, has a specific mission: take guns and bullets off the street and turn them into beautiful pieces of jewelry.
So far, the company has collected over 1,000 guns from law enforcement agencies in Philadelphia, Newburgh, N.Y., and Syracuse, N.Y. Thum said he picked those three cities because of their high rate of gun violence. Eventually, he hopes to partner with cities nationwide.
In each of those cities, Liberty United also works closely with the mayor's office.
"We've had a terrific relationship with the cities and their police departments right from the beginning," said Thum.
Typically, after law enforcement agencies confiscate illegal weapons, they catalog and destroy them. Liberty United takes the guns after they've been cataloged and sends them to a blacksmith who disassembles and smelts them. Liberty United collects the scrap metal and artists use it to make the jewelry.
Thum said a portion of the jewelry's sales help fund programs to reduce gun violence and to support its victims.
It's an area Thum is very familiar with. In 2009, he started Founderie 47, which collects AK 47 assault rifles from conflict zones in Africa and uses the metal to make jewelry and other accessories.
Each sale helps fund the destruction of assault rifles in Africa, said Thum. He estimated that 34,000 weapons have been destroyed in Congo and Burundi as a result of Founderie 47.
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For its first collection, Liberty United partnered with jewelry designer Philip Crangi, who created railroad spike-inspired rings, bracelets and necklaces priced between $85 and $1,400. LIberty United profits from these sales, but donates 25% to the Mural Arts program in Philadelphia, which offers art education in local prisons and rehabilitation centers.
The recycled metal from the guns went to producing thousands of handmade pieces for the collection, which is still available online. Each piece also has the serial number of the original weapon inscribed in it.
Liberty United is now collaborating with designer Pamela Love on a similarly priced collection that launched in November and includes necklaces and cuffs with semi-precious stones.
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Thum is well-versed in social entrepreneurship. In addition to Founderie 47, he founded Ethos Water in 2003, which funds water and sanitation projects in developing countries. Two years later, he sold the company to Starbucks (SBUX, Fortune 500) for $7.7 million.
It was during business trips to Africa with Ethos that he first got the idea for Founderie 47.
"I would be stopped at roadblocks by 12-year-old boys armed with rifles," he said. "I realized then that we couldn't make meaningful progress with our other projects in Africa until we also did something about this."
Gun violence, both in Africa's war zones and on the streets of America, is a problem that can't be ignored, he said.
"We wanted to use what we had learned and achieved through Founderie 47 to build an effort to reduce gun violence here at home," said Thum. 
First Published: December 4, 2013: 3:46 AM ET
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