Across the country guns are being forged into garden tools as in Isaiah 2:4: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares.” This movement is coming to Oakland on June 11, 2022.
Oakland, CA — On April 14, a press conference to announce the Guns to Gardens buyback program took place at At Thy Word Ministries in Oakland. Chief LeRonne L. Armstrong of the Oakland Police Department (OPD), Michael Martin of RAWTools, Pastor Billy Dixon, Councilmember Treva Reid were speakers. The Guns to Gardens exchange will take place on June 11, 2022.
“This is a great way of disposing instruments that have caused so much damage to our community,” said Chief Armstrong. “Over 1200 firearms were recovered in 2020 and 2021 and over 400 firearms recovered in city so far…..We will take these destructive weapons and make them into things that our community can use.”
Guns to Gardens is a gun buyback program in which guns are forged into garden tools. Inspired by Isaiah 2:4 — “And they shall beat their swords into plowshares” — the program takes inspiration from RAWTools and successful Guns to Gardens programs across the country.
Paula Hawthorn, an organizer of the program, first learned of Michael Martin and the Guns to Gardens initiative while listening to a podcast produced by her Episcopalian church. She had already been a regular walker in the Friday Ceasefire Night Walks and a volunteer with the Brady Campaign in gun-tracing work. She brought the idea of a Guns to Gardens program to OPD.
Hawthorn, a 78 year-old retired software engineer and grandmother of five, felt compelled to become involved after three children were killed by gun violence in Oakland in 2011. “I do this work because God tells me,” she said.
With the training from RAWtools leaders, local Oakland blacksmith John Rogers and assistants will take guns that the Oakland Police Department has determined should be destroyed and will forge them into garden tools. Then on June 11, with the assistance of OPD at the church At Thy Word in East Oakland, the first 50 people turning in their guns at this event will receive one of these garden tools in addition to gift cards. The guns collected at the event will also be forged into garden tools.
Event sponsors are: Faith in Action East Bay, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, the Violence Prevention Coalition, At Thy Word Ministries Church of God in Christ, Make Oakland Better Now!, Brady United and the Oakland Police Department.
Donations are being accepted for the cost of forging the guns into tools, and purchasing gift cards.
To donate, please make the check out to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, with the notation that it is for the Guns to Gardens event, and please send it to the following address. St. Paul’s EIN is 94-1243684. If you want to donate electronically, rather than by check, please go to St. Paul’s Guns to Gardens click “add gift to another fund” and scroll down to Guns to Gardens. For checks, please send to:
Rev. Mauricio Wilson, Guns to Gardens
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
114 Montecito Ave.
Oakland. CA 94610