Guns To Roses

Denver Group Collects 35 Firearms In Park Hill To Repurpose Into Garden Tools

By Cara DeGette

Editor, GPHN

“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

Organizers behind a movement to turn guns into garden tools take that passage from the Book of Isaiah literally.

“We believe this is a commandment,” said volunteer Taylor Davenport-Hudson. “We take very seriously the swords-to-plowshares vision — that there won’t be violence in our communities.”

On June 10, some 53 volunteers from 16 different congregations gathered at Park Hill’s Cure d’Ars Catholic Church for a “Guns to Gardens” event.

Organizers had initially hoped between 50 and 100 firearms would be surrendered, but the final count was lower. In all, 35 unwanted firearms were turned in — four of which were assault-style weapons.

“Yes, we’ve dismantled more guns at our previous safe-surrender events,” said Davenport-Hudson. “But we have not had such a large proportion of semi-automatic and assault-style weapons surrendered like they were [at the June event]. We are especially celebrating that four assault-style weapons were dismantled.”

Guns to Gardens Denver (gunstogardensdenver.org) is part of a national movement, and has held other similar events in the metro area. The group points out that of an estimated 400 million guns in American homes, many are no longer wanted for a range of reasons. A gun owner may have children or grandchildren in the home; a hunter or other gun owner may have reached an age where he or she no longer feels that they can safely handle weapons; a gun may have been returned to family by the police after it was used in a suicide or accident; there may be conflict in a family or there may a family member with a serious illness.

“For whatever reason, Guns to Gardens provides a way to dispose of unwanted guns without returning them to the gun marketplace, where they could be used for future harm,” according to organizers.

Cure d’Ars Catholic Church Deacon Clarence McDavid described the program as a responsible way to dispose of unwanted guns — and have those weapons of destruction turned into garden tools that are used for good. “Our church is concerned about the high level of gun violence in America and the harm that is being done through suicide, injuries, accidents and other gun violence,” he said.

At the June event, people were instructed to put their unloaded guns in the back seat or trunk of their cars or vans and drive them to the church’s parking lot in Northeast Park Hill. There, skilled personnel removed the firearms from vehicles and transferred them to a chop saw station, set up in the parking lot. The guns were then cut into three pieces. Gun owners remained anonymous, and waited in their cars through the process.

Once dismantled, the guns are no longer legally guns, and the owners could then donate the leftover parts to be forged into garden tools.

A Colorado Springs organization, RAWtools, crafts the dismantled guns into garden tools and jewelry. (The company’s website is Rawtools.org.) Davenport-Hudson said garden troughs and garden mattocks (with a hoe on one side and a fork on the other) are the most common tools crafted from the dismantled guns.

Additional Guns to Garden events are being organized for September and December in Denver, and one in Lafayette in October, she said. In addition to Guns to Gardens Denver and RAWtools, the June program was sponsored by the Denver Office of Community Violence Solutions and Denver Health.