A gun buyback is scheduled for Saturday at the United Church of Christ Longmont parking lot as part of an ongoing effort by different groups to turn unwanted guns into garden tools.
The event is sponsored by the church, RAWtools, Inc., Heart of Longmont and Longmont Community Foundation. It will be held from 10 a.m. to noon at the northwest corner of Ninth and Francis streets.
People donating guns will receive gift cards, Sarah Verasco, senior minister at the United Church of Christ, said. Owners donating rifles and shotguns get $50 gift cards, semi automatic rifles and handguns get $150 and $250 gift cards are available for assault-style weapons.
Ammunition will not be accepted and the sponsors do not compensate for “ghost guns” and air guns but will disable them, according to a flier for the event.
This is the tenth buyback event this year in Colorado for RAWtools, which has collected 900 guns so far in 2021, Verasco said. The Colorado Springs group disables guns and uses the parts to build garden tools.
RAWtools’s mission is to “disarm hearts and forge peace and is driven by our ability to make a choice about the tools we use to navigate conflict,” according to the RAWtool’s website.
“As we lose more than 100 people a day to gun violence in the United States, it’s becoming more and more clear that guns have no place in conflict resolution,” the website states. “Many folks donate their guns to RAWtools because they realize they don’t need them anymore.”
The group’s “Sword to Plow” program allows people to donate their guns to RAWtools and receive a garden tool from that gun for free, the website states. RAWtools keeps any remaining parts to make more tools or items to raise money.
