June is Prevent Gun Violence Month — a time to reflect on the fact that more than 43,000 Americans die every year from gun violence. Approximately 56% to 60% of the gun deaths are from suicide, followed by homicide, family violence and unintended shootings. A difficult moment can turn into a tragedy simply because a gun is nearby.
With more than 400 million guns in American homes, many of these guns are no longer wanted for a range of reasons: sometimes these are inherited guns; a family feels they are unsafe to have in a home with children or teens, with senior citizens or with anyone who suffers from a serious illness; a hunter or other gun owner may have reached an age where they no longer feel that they can safely handle weapons; a gun may have been returned to a family by the police after it was used in a suicide or unintended shooting.
So what can one do to safely get rid of a gun?
On Oahu, unwanted guns can be safely turned in to the Honolulu Police Department via its gun take-back program. I suggest we also adopt a community-based alternative called “Guns to Gardens,” which has been embraced by other states.
“Guns to Gardens” is a movement in the United States to provide Americans with a practical way to responsibly dispose of unwanted guns without returning them to the gun marketplace where they could be used for future harm.
The project is modeled on the nonprofit organization RAWtools, which for more than 10 years has created a national network of blacksmiths who forge chopped up gun parts into garden tools, art projects and jewelry as part of their mission to “disarm hearts, forge peace, and cultivate justice.”
These are drive-through events. The unwanted and unloaded guns are placed in the back seat of a car, trunk or the rear of a van and driven to the event’s parking lot. Skilled personnel remove the firearms from vehicles and transfer them to a chop saw station.
Trained volunteers will use power tools to make a number of cuts to the gun, according to guidelines from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The gun owner waits through this process, watching the gun chopped up. Once the gun is destroyed it is no longer legally a gun and the parts cannot be used to make a new weapon. There is no transfer of firearm ownership. The owner can then donate the leftover parts to be forged into garden tools, art or jewelry.
The goals of Guns to Garden events are to reduce the number of gun deaths and injuries in the community and to allow for safe disposal of unwanted firearms. These events are generally sponsored by churches, synagogues and temples and are held in their parking lots. They have been moved by the scriptures, “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks,” and by the increasing tragic violence in their communities.
Twenty-nine states on the continent have held such events; why not make Hawaii the 30th?
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More information: See rawtools.org/swords-to-plowshares or google Guns to Gardens. A Zoom online training event, from July 11 to Aug. 8, will be held every Thursday 1:30-2:30 p.m. HST; register to attend.
Kailua resident and gardener Marian Heidel is a long-time advocate for social justice, peace, affordable housing, and the houseless.
