Officer R. Smith of the Oakland Police Department inspects a rifle that was surrendered during the Guns to Gardens buyback held in the parking lot of At Thy Word Ministries on Saturday. Community members exchanged their firearms for gift cards and garden tools formed from guns turned in during past collections. “If you get just one, it’s worth it,” said Capt. Gordon Dorham of the Oakland Police Department.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
Police services technician H. Biber of the Oakland Police Department prepares to place surrendered weapons into a department vehicle during the gun buyback Saturday.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
Surrendered weapons are stored in a crate during Oakland’s gun buyback Saturday.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
Two AK-style rifles, one AR-15, a few Glock pistols and two Uzi submachine guns — one small enough to fit in a backpack.
These were some of the 98 firearms collected by volunteers from faith congregations and the Oakland Police Department on Saturday in an effort to cultivate new uses for the weapons — as garden tools.
The Guns to Gardens buyback program encouraged community members to exchange firearms — no questions asked — for Target gift cards worth up to $300, as well as garden tools formed from previous exchanges. The weekend event, held in the parking lot of At Thy Word Ministries in East Oakland, marked the faith-based group’s sixth iteration of the program.
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Police services technician H. Biber of the Oakland Police Department holds a surrendered firearm during Saturday’s buyback.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
After a firearm is brought in, the police department checks its serial number to make sure it wasn’t stolen. The weapon is then disabled, with rifles and shotguns turned into garden trowels and tillers.
Having a firearm in the home dramatically increases the risk of suicide, homicide and accidental injury of household members, organizers of the buyback said. Guns in the home are also a prime target for thieves, who use them for other crimes, the organizers said.
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“It just takes one incident, a gun being in the wrong place, in the wrong time around the wrong individual … and it changes everybody’s life,” said Oakland police Capt. Gordon Dorham.
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Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee looks at garden tools created by blacksmith John Colle Rogers during Saturday’s gun buyback. “This is a very important day. In an hour and a half, for example, 75 guns have been turned in,” she said. “This is about getting these weapons of war off of the streets of Oakland.”
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Research on the effectiveness of gun buybacks is mixed, with recent studies showing that the voluntary programs have not significantly reduced violence, homicide or overall crime on their own.
Some researchers, however, argue that the buybacks provide narrower benefits, such as safely removing unwanted firearms from homes, raising awareness and possibly contributing to suicide prevention when combined with broader weapons safety or violence prevention strategies.
“If you do a thousand hours of work, you save one life, that’s it — that’s what it’s worth,” said John Colle Rogers, the Oakland blacksmith who uses the surrendered weapons to make garden tools.
Blacksmith John Colle Rogers displays garden tools formed from guns collected during past buybacks in Oakland.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
Many of the surrendered guns are broken or in poor condition, said volunteer Andrew Hawthorn. Other donors inherited their guns from family members but don’t want them. One of the firearms exchanged Saturday was owned by a man on parole whose grandmother persuaded him to give it up, according to Hawthorn.
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Volunteer Cara Meredith said Mayor Barbara Lee has encouraged Guns to Gardens to hold its buyback event each quarter. The group is seeking additional funding from the city and donors to do so. Each event, Meredith said, costs roughly $10,000 for gift cards and a stipend for Rogers.
Guns to Gardens is inspired by Isaiah 2:4, a prophecy of universal peace that declares that nations will “beat their swords into plowshares” by transforming tools of war into agricultural instruments.
Chronicle photographer Yalonda M. James contributed to this report.
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