In the parking lot of Oakland’s Mount Zion Baptist Church on Saturday afternoon, David Geisser handed over a gun to a police officer and in exchange received a gift card and garden tool from Mayor Barbara Lee.
The exchange was part of an annual gun buyback event by Guns to Gardens, a faith-based group that takes firearms and forges them into gardening tools – inspired by in Isaiah 2:4, “and they shall forge their swords into plowshares.”
Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee chats with blacksmith John Colle Rogers during the city’s Guns to Gardens buyback Saturday. (Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle)
The gun Geisser brought once belonged to his late brother-in-law, and he had been holding it for his brother-in-law’s son, who lives on the East Coast, he said. The son gave him the go-ahead to turn it in.
“I’m appalled at all the violence in the world and the streets, all these terrible wars and violence,” Geisser said. “It’s a good way to get rid of some guns off the street.”
Geisser is a Vietnam veteran and has used guns himself, he said, but firearms “have no purpose back in civilian society.”
Fifty-seven guns and one switchblade were collected during the afternoon, and about $4,500 worth of Target gift cards was distributed, said Paul Hawthorn, who helped organize the event. The buyback has been held annually or biannually since 2022. The garden tools were forged from guns that were turned in at previous buyback events.
A weapon that was turned in during the gun buyback event. (Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle)
Voluntary gun buyback programs in the United States do not reduce overall gun violence, research has found.
“What it is for is bringing people’s awareness that they need to get the guns out of their houses, and it does help with that,” Hawthorn said. “For the people who turn in the guns who no longer have that gun in the house as a possible use for suicide or accidents, it’s a good thing.”
Chronicle photographer Yalonda M. James contributed to this report.
This article originally published at Oakland gun buyback collects 57 firearms, gives out $4,500 in Target gift cards.