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Shane Claiborne and Mike Martin believe in redemption. >> Read the latest trends This is for people. And firearms. The men of Philadelphia take firearms available and turn them into practical gardening tools. An AK-47 becomes a shovel and a rake. A gun becomes a trowel. Now they are cultivating life, not taking it. "We are not trying to take the weapons away from people. We are trying to save lives, "said Claiborne, community activist and founder of Simple Way, a nonprofit organization that focuses on community organization and development in the Kensington neighborhood of North Philly. Claiborne and Martin have turned this philosophy of turning guns into tools on a guided tour that stops at Mableton on Saturday. Claiborne grew up in Tennessee, where many of his friends and relatives were hunters and gun owners. When he moved to Philadelphia, however, he got tired of hearing of so many deaths due to gun violence. A young man once asked Claiborne why there were so many guns in a city when there were not many deer. He did not get an answer. "We grew up saying we were pro-life," said Claiborne. "But abortion is not the only pro-life problem. How can you be pro-life and be pro gun and the death penalty? It's a bit of a contradiction and disturbing. We just want to be constantly for life. "He quotes the Bible, Isaiah 2: 4:" They will smite their swords with plows and their spears with hooks of size; the nations will not lift the sword against the nations, and they will not learn the war any more. Claiborne and Martin, a Mennonite pastor, blacksmith and founder of RAWtools, a non-profit association, will be in Mableton at 6 pm Saturday as part of a "Beating Guns" tour in 37 towns that stops at Vinings Lake Church, located at 75 Cooper Lake Road SE. There will be demonstrations, music and artists. Until now, the tour has stopped in churches, convention centers and community centers and even at street corners. Hearings ranged from 50 to 500 people. People contact them in advance to give weapons (rawtools.org). As soon as an empty firearm is brought, it is rendered unusable and cut on the spot, becoming the base of the scrap. Survivors, victims and families of victims of gun violence are then invited to gather around the forge. It can be therapeutic. One night, among the people gathered were the family of a father who had killed his wife and then committed suicide; and a woman who lost four members of her family. "People say it's not a gun problem; it's a heart problem, "said Martin. "We say it's both." In fact, experts say that gun violence has become a public health problem. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 40,000 people in the United States have died as a result of armed violence, fueled in part by suicides. Martin said some people avoided using the word "accident" because generally "there was something that could have been done to avoid it". In addition to the tool aspect of the tour, Martin said – difficult situations and resources for those considering suicide. "We come from many different places," he said. Surprisingly, Claiborne said, some of their biggest allies have owned firearms. There are gun owners, he said, who want a tighter background check or are against assault rifles. "Reasonable people want to see the change." Related: Metro Atl houses of worship are wary of mass shootings. They work with various weapons buyout programs and accept individual firearms, which are then turned into shovels. The shovels are then used to plant trees in different cities of the country, including places where people have died as a result of armed violence and at historic sites. In Atlanta, during a week of commemorative ceremonies celebrating the 50th anniversary of the death of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., "Lead to Life" hosted a soil collection ceremony at the site where an African American Mack Brown was murdered in 1936 in Roswell after allegedly kissing the hand of a white woman. The ground collected non-profit with a trowel RawTools. The floor was then sent to the Equal Justice Initiative to support its community memory project and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery. In addition, the soil collected at the lynching site was planted 50 trees across Atlanta using shovels manufactured with the help of weapons. "The symbol of a gun is so strong," said Velez. "It's a way for people to reinvent firearms. This gives them space to pause and open their hearts. "
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