- Hi, I'm Michael Gadlin.
- And I'm Kate Perdoni.
Welcome back to Arts District on Rocky Mountain PBS.
- It's been 20 years since the Columbine High School
shooting in Littleton, Colorado on April 20th, 1999.
To mark this anniversary and to bring people together
in dialogue, RMPBS has created a special series called
Beyond Columbine.
- And with all of our original Colorado content,
we hope to illuminate the many ways that our community
has been impacted by gun violence.
You can watch all of our local content
at rmpbs.org and you can join in
the conversation by using #BeyondColumbine.
- Here at Arts District, we're taking a look
at how artists bring messages of peace to their communities
in the aftermath of these tragedies.
- In Colorado Springs, one organization
is transforming donated guns
into workable garden tools in a very powerful way.
(hammer clanks)
- [Mike] You can't just not watch
what's happening at the anvil.
We did one where a mother lost her son
to a random gang drive-by shooting
and there was 20 years between when we met her
and she lost her son and she came to bang on the barrel
and after every hit, she said, "This is for my son."
Afterwards, she just kind of bent over,
like the hammer just pulled her to the ground.
So, 20 years after that, she's still dealing
with this immeasurable grief.
So that's what keeps me doing this.
- [Kate] Guns to garden tools.
That's the idea behind RAWtools, an organization
addressing gun violence in a transformative way.
- The scripture about swords to plowshares
is something that always stuck out to me
and something I would just always think about.
I grew up being a Mennonite and a Baptist background.
Non-violence and service were two big tenets
of the Mennonite church.
In 2012 December is when the Sandy Hook shooting happened
in Newtown, Connecticut and it was kind of
the last straw, I guess, for a lot of us.
- [Kate] Mike used the fire within
to help shape a new conversation around gun violence.
If we didn't have guns, how might we
go about problem-solving differently.
That's the gist that's behind RAWtools.
Our mission statement is to disarm hearts and forge peace.
So part of that is saying, there's a gun problem
and a heart problem and how do we bring those two together.
The conversation today doesn't let you do that.
(soft music)
- Family members and loved ones who have been impacted
by gun violence come to events like this
to surrender their weapons.
They take to the anvil.
With each strike, years of grief melt away.
Left in its place, a tool, like this.
- I was a freshman at Virginia Tech in 2007
and I actually lived in the dorm
where the first shooting happened at Tech.
Got to see first hand what it looks like
when a community is struck by a violent act,
but also seeing how that energy can be used
to create something that brings life; a shovel, a spade.
Things that truly are taking tools of death
and turning them into tools of life.
- It's such a cathartic release.
It's also extremely spiritual to know
it has opened up many people's minds to talking
about what's happening in our communities.
How do we merge what we believe in the spirit,
what we believe in faith with what is happening
in our communities and in our families.
- [Kate] Behind this unassuming garage door
is a full blacksmith's workshop,
complete with saw,
forge
and anvil.
- In this part of our shop,
we've got some guns that have come in.
These have all been processed.
We've got some guns over here from individual donors
that are in line to be processed.
- [Kate] Police departments also work with RAWtools,
donating confiscated weapons
and guns from buy-back programs.
- This tool here, which is the end product of what we do.
It's just waiting on some woodburning with our logo.
We put a number on every tool to help track it
so sometimes that number is burnt into the handle.
This tool has it stamped on the middle.
- What feeling do you get when you hand a tool to someone
at the end of the process?
- I think most of my emotions is felt in the process
of making it and then when I give it to them,
it's all about watching their emotion and taking that in.
Sometimes, it's really celebratory
and sometimes it's filled with grief.
It actually mirrors the process when they donate it to us
but there still is this breath of fresh air.
That's probably common with everybody,
whether it's a celebration or grief,
that it's another stage on their journey.
- [Kate] RAWtools has transformed 400 guns since 2012,
creating more than 600 garden tools,
each tool sowing seeds of peace across the nation.
- [Mike] I think we're learning that most of us
want to see something change.
That's gun owners, that's not gun owners,
that's people of faith, not people of faith.
There's a lot more we hold in common than what we don't
and I think that gets lost in the national conversation.
- When we think about Colorado, we think ground zero
far too many times when it comes to mass shootings
and gun violence and I think that we are a place
that can lead the charge across the nation.
We can legislate all day long, but if, in our minds,
we don't have alternative ways to seek justice,
alternative ways to deal with conflict
and to prevent violence, then we're only
touching part of the issue and I think that the work
of RAWtools does all of that at one time.
(hammer pounds)
- RAWtools is now taking their message on the rood.
They're visiting 37 cities nationwide where they will accept
donations and transform guns around the anvil.
- It's part of a book tour for Beating Guns:
Hope for People Who Are Weary of Violence,
co-authored by Mike.
You can learn more at rawtools.org.
You can also watch all of our Beyond Columbine content
at rmpbs.org and join the conversation at #BeyondColumbine.