The Nationwide Movement Turning Guns into Garden Tools
A process that heals trauma while taking guns out of circulation is producing beautiful tools that cultivate life rather than destroy it.
By: Michaela Haas
The first time Mike Martin held an AK-47 was after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, which claimed the lives of 20 children and six adults. The shooting shocked a friend of a friend, a lawyer, into questioning why he owned an AK-47 in the first place. “He decided to destroy that one,” Martin recalls.As a Mennonite youth and young adult pastor, Martin had long contemplated the idea of interpreting the “swords to ploughshares” ideal from the Book of Isaiah in a modern context.
“My faith tradition is rooted in peace and non-violence,” he says. Together with his father and the lawyer, Martin took the AK-47 to a nearby blacksmith in Colorado Springs, dismantled it and forged the metal into a shovel and a rake. “There’s this thing about turning guns into garden tools,” Martin reflects in the book Beating Guns. “You have to add some heat — a little more than 2,000 degrees of controlled flame.”
This moment sparked the beginning of RAWtools (War spelled backwards), a nonprofit Martin now runs full-time, and a movement spanning four states with affiliates in Buffalo, NY; Philadelphia, PA; and Asheville, North Carolina. Since its humble beginnings 14 years ago, RAWtools has destroyed and repurposed more than 6,000 guns, forging them into garden tools and art.
No Score
Reasons
Those who beat their swords into plowshares shall plow for those who did not.
-Anon
Thanks, Mikey, but I’ll keep my guns and get my garden tools from Lowe’s. Glad you feel better, though.
Nice looking girl, has a PhD, tits and writes books.
One of the big reasons that you can live your life of peace and non violence, is that there are others around you with guns willing to do violence to protect your peace and non violence.
(Not remembering the exact quote, oh dark too damned early), People sleep peacefully in their beds because there are others willing to do violence on their behalf.
And I was thinking of that “swords into plows” quote while reading that propaganda, but you beat me to it. It needed to be said.
The Papoose is a nice little gun. It’s got a similar feel to the Model 60 in the hand, besides the obvious exposed barrel. I bought mine around 2009, maybe three years after the Henry US Survival rifle. I picked up two of the Chiappa Little Badgers (featured in a post earlier this week) when I worked at Bass Pro. One tan version with a backpack and one olive with a cheap scope mounted. Both were the same price (maybe $180
or so).
Yeah, when the ragheads come for your daughter, that rake is really gonna scare them, Mikey.
I think I’ll just go buy some more ammo. Maybe another firearm or three. And prepare to defend my loved ones against the forces of evil all around us.
And maybe ask those around you begging for protection against the robbery and onslaught, “You have any weapons of your own? No? How much are you willing to pay ME to protect YOU? Freedom ain’t free.”
I believe the phrase is akin to “Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who didn’t”.