WORT 89.9FM Madison
Community Group Beats Donated Guns into Garden Tools
This is Brian Standing, host of the Monday 8 o'clock buzz. Thanks so much for listening to the program. Hope you subscribe to our podcast. And if you really like what you're hearing, consider donating at w-o-r-t-f-m.org. The Book of Isaiah chapter 4 reads, "And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people, and 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 anymore." The Raw Tools Cooperative has decided to take that biblical admonition literally with their Guns to Garden Tools program. On Saturday, September 28, the Eastmoreland Community Center invites the community to bring in unwanted firearms where trained volunteers will disable the guns and convert them into functional garden tools. Stacey Maresy Wheeler is the director of the Eastmoreland Community Center. She joins us now in the studio. Welcome to the 8 o'clock buzz. Thanks for having me. And we're also joined by Stacey's husband, Scott Maresy Wheeler. Welcome to the 8 o'clock buzz as well. Thank you. So explain exactly what's going to happen here. I mean, so if if someone shows up at the Eastmoreland Community Center on Saturday with, say, a hunting rifle, right, what will happen on that site? What will people do? Well, it's kind of a twofold event, right? So part of it is community awareness and part of it is a very specifically run safe surrender event to help people divest of weapons, get them out of their home safely, make sure they stop a cycle of violence with a weapon, or if it's a legacy weapon, that's an heirloom that they want to have something done with, don't want to get rid of. It's a way of repurposing that feels better than just keeping it locked up, I think, and unused for some. And is this the first time that you've run such an event? It is the first time that I've run an event like that at Eastmoreland Community Center. So but they happen all over the place. And so there have been area groups, churches and community centers, and certainly law enforcement that have done safe surrender, where they literally go through a process, a drive-through process, where the guns are kept in a trunk of a car and volunteers unload those certified volunteers that are able to deal with weapons. And those unloaded weapons are then taken and dismantled immediately, and gift cards are given to the person that's surrendering the weapons. And who are these volunteers? Scott? Different people who are interested. Sometimes they're volunteers from churches who are doing this, sometimes from community groups who are partnering with the Guns to Gardens. Jeff Wild, who is a retired Lutheran minister here in the Madison area, has been working with us on this. In his retirement, he felt called to learn to be a blacksmith. And so he does a lot with the chop saws that we used to dismantle the surrendered weapons. And then working with that, he takes the metal parts and he turns those into the garden tools. He has a couple people who do the woodwork to create the handles and stuff. If the stock of a weapon, the wood is good enough, they can use that, but they have other means of getting those handles and stuff. And what kind of tools do you make out of a firearm? Spades, small hose, anything that would be hand-travels, anything that would be a smaller hand-held garden tool. And are these functional or is this primarily a symbolic action? Absolutely, they're functional. So for some people, like I said, if it's a legacy piece that has been handed down in their family, they may want to keep it for a keepsake and not use it functionally, but they're absolutely functional garden tools. And what's involved in, what are the mechanics of converting a firearm into, say, a spade or a shovel? I mean, what do you have to do to it? Well, watching Jeff work with that. And he's done demonstrations. He has a small anvil. He's got a portable forge. And so he comes, take the metal part, you heat it up, and then he just begins to work it on the anvil. And depending on the type of metal part, the gun barrel and stuff, as to what he can do. So anyhow, then he just works with that. And then he begins to split it, so he can flatten it out and shape those into the spade. Sometimes they're the little tools. Yes. So depending on that, so a shotgun barrel, a rifle barrel, you know, some are smaller and stuff as to what he can use and make from that. But a lot of the parts he can use, sometimes he'll cut those into like heart-shaped pieces for necklaces. There have been other little trinkets that he can create that so that people who are surrendering, and if you surrender a gun, you can sign up to get a garden tool from that. And so that's a piece. When he has enough time and he has enough, he will have a display at an event and people can purchase a garden tool. And that money then goes back into helping with the next event. And how many guns, unwanted guns, are there out there? I mean, obviously there's some symbolism here. This is an idea of trying to get fewer guns in the community, fewer farms. Why is that important and how many people are in that situation or they have a gun that they just don't know how to get rid of? Well, I think probably more than we realize, right? I mean, Wisconsin between 2009 and 2018 had increased 28% in the rate of gun deaths. And that's 10% higher than the national average for that time of 18%. So clearly there's a lot of guns in Wisconsin, right? And people struggle with how to safely keep them in their homes so that unwanted accidents don't occur. And I think there's oftentimes, in many of the pieces that I've read, oftentimes those are the guns that law enforcement cannot reach, right? That oftentimes are sold into places that end up in a cycle of violence that people never intended for that to happen or end up in accidents or self-inflicted harm. And we have had, in the safe surrender, people, when I was working at Midville Lutheran, when we did one a year ago in the summer, someone had inherited from a deceased relative to semi-automatic weapons. And they didn't want those. I mean, they just came to them after the death of a relative. And so they turned those in. We also had a woman bring a handgun that her father had used to take his own life. And it had bothered her and she brought it and she wanted to watch us dismantle that. And it was kind of cathartic helping her work through her grief process. And we've had several of those stories where people bring something related to that, a honey accident. And so the weapon gun holds some emotional attachment in a negative way. And they want to do something with that rather than putting it back out on the street. And it's not often the number of guns that we get through these events. It's really about community awareness. It's about turning something that is emotionally charged and can be very burdensome for people into a place where they feel supported in terms of giving those up and having community support while they do it. So that's really why it's a twofold event for us. We're hoping we have lots of gardening groups coming to table at the event and music. And we're really hoping that it will be a supportive environment for people who are surrendering weapons. What about someone who's surrendering an illegal firearm or one that may have been used in a crime? Are people welcome to bring those kinds of guns to or are we looking really for things that have been licensed and purchased legally? Well, this is my first one. So my understanding is that those questions are not asked. Yes, we do not ask that question. And some events, law enforcement is present. Some communities that do this are hesitant to have law enforcement there because of the nature of things and the tension between the police and the community they're serving. We did one of these at Alice's Garden in Milwaukee a year ago in October with the idea because it's a neighborhood that there is a lot of gun violence in Milwaukee. And the idea was we worked with some young people who were doing metalwork and that we would turn those weapons into garden tools to be used at Alice's Garden. So again, we don't ask questions with that. The events that I've been at here in Madison, we have had law enforcement present to help us with that. And there's a good relationship generally with that. But again, we're not looking for that or making any arrests. After one of our events, safe surrender events, Calvin Barrett was present and came back and they put on a safe surrender event through the sheriff's department, I believe, at the Alliance Center and got a lot more guns. But the ones that I've been involved with with Jeff Wild here in the Madison area, we've gotten 20 to 30 guns. The one I did out in Cambridge, Wisconsin where I serve a small part-time church, we got six guns. And we'll take BB guns, pellet guns, anything people want to get out. It will there be law enforcement at the Saturday, September 28th event? There will be someone certified to handle the weapons. So Eastside, Madison police were very supportive of our neighborhood officer, Officer D'Loch was very supportive of the event, but it's a home badger game. So police in Madison, the city of Madison proper, are pretty stretched on those days. So we will have someone who is off duty certified to handle the weapons, but we've invited other law enforcement, we don't know who's coming out. But to be clear, as you say, no questions asked, just to bring the gun in and you'll dispose of it safely. Is there any other safety concerns associated? I mean, for example, you mentioned unloaded guns. I assume you're not asking people to bring live ammunition to this event. We're actually prohibiting that, right? So an ammunition will not be collected and the firearm has to be in the trunk of the car. The driver stays in the car in the driver's seat while the weapon is unloaded from the vehicle or taken out of the vehicle, I should say. And then that weapon is dealt with, checked for ammunition. If there's ammunition, that ammunition goes back in the trunk. It does not stay with us, but the weapon comes with us. So the person then receives a gift card in a monetary amount connected to the value of the gun, and then they have to drive off premises. They can park their car and come back, right? But that car has to leave the premises. And what are some of the other reasons someone might want to surrender a firearm? Well, my understanding is that oftentimes when there is a crime with a gun or a gun is involved in self-harm, the family of the victim often receives that gun back. And so that's a reason to want to get rid of a gun, right? And oftentimes, a reason why families are looking for a way to do that. All right, we've been speaking with Stacey and Scott Maracey Wheeler, director at Stacey's, the director of the East Moreland Community Center. The Guns to Garden tools event takes place Saturday, September 28th from 9am to noon. At the East Moreland Community Center 3565 Tulane Avenue in Madison for more information, go to eastmorelandcommunitycenter.org. Stacey, Scott, thank you so much for joining us on the eight o'clock box. Thank you for having us.
Photo courtesy of Scott Marrese-Wheeler and Pat Siegler