Colorado Springs, Colo. – Some communities are returning to recovery programs to combat gun violence.
Now, a program in Colorado Springs is giving those guns a new lease of life.
“I’ve always loved the idea of creating and making things,” said Michael Martin, co-founder of Rawtools, an organization dedicated to turning guns into garden tools. “So it might be catastrophic, it could be healing, and it might seem like something they are contributing to the world to add to the meaning of turning the gun into a garden.”
Martin and his father started a nonprofit organization as a firearms program – to take the gun off the road and reduce gun violence.
“One of the things I said as a pastor was to turn the sword into a plow, and I wondered what that would look like today,” said Martin. “So we have a huge network of volunteers all over the country to help dismantle their weapons. There are questions as to whether purchases work. And I think the data is being searched. It is to create longevity.
However, a lawyer who studies gun recovery programs, such as David Copeel, argues that gun buying may not be very effective.
“Recently, in May 2021, some scholars published a paper with the Bureau of National Economic Studies, which is the most comprehensive overview of purchases made for a quarter of a century,” Coppel said. From 1991 to 2015, they were trying to find information on each return purchase and found statistically significant long-term zero benefits. Rawtools are choosing one direction with the volunteer participants, and it probably makes everyone feel good, which is great. That is their free will. ”
According to Martin, Rawtools is trying to improve those numbers by incorporating the process as a form of treatment for gun victims.
Sirius, the survivor of the New Life Church Mass, joins Rawtools.
“My two sisters were killed by that bullet,” said Heart. “My contact with Rawtools has given me a way to change my relationship. I can do something more than the tragedy that surrounds me.
Charleta Evans, who played with Rawtools, was also injured in the shooting.
Evans: “I lost my three-year-old son in a car accident. “At Rawtools, they do it in front of the public and in front of people who turn their guns in. This is where you can see the various shapes used for this metal in front of their eyes.”
So far, Martin Rawtools has converted more than a thousand guns into gardening equipment. Martin hopes more new return programs will be developed across the country.
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