Following worship at First Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City on Sunday, members and visitors took part in the “Guns to Garden” event where guns are transfigured into garden tools. Photo by Kristen Gaydos
Two years after Nia Maile lost her 15-year-old cousin to gun violence, his death still shakes her to the core.
In life, her cousin, whose name was Paula Tahi, had been the mildly annoying “brother” that Maile regretted having to bring along with her to things, but since his death — at the hands of a fellow teenager — he has become her motivation to speak out about senseless violence.
“What I would give just to take you to the park one more day,” Maile said on Sunday during a recorded presentation at First Presbyterian Church of Salt Lake City. “May you always be remembered, my brother.”
The presentation was part of a Guns to Gardens event that was held to give participants in the 226th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) a chance to witness the destruction of a gun that will eventually be transformed into a gardening tool.
“This resonates with me deeply,” said Holly Dillon, general presbyter in the Presbytery of Tampa Bay. “One gun that's been transformed is one gun less that could cause potential harm.”
As part of the event, visitors to First Presbyterian were able to hear from people like Maile who’ve been personally impacted by gun violence and to view a demo from an alley next to the church or via livestream while eating lunch at the church.
In addition to being featured in the recorded presentation, Maile attended the event in person and participated in beating a piece of metal that had been part of a pellet gun that was chopped up during the event, which was put on with the help of several organizations, including the nonprofit RAWtools.
Catherine Voutaz, whose son took his own life with a gun in 2017, also took a turn beating the metal that had been heated up to make it more malleable. “It was so easy to like move that steel when it was hot,” Voutaz said. “That was like super cool” and “a little empowering.”
Voutaz, whose son was the first of a string of suicides at his high school, used her time during the recorded presentation to speak about the importance of safe storage of firearms. She also encouraged anyone who sees the presentation, which is available on Facebook, to participate in Guns to Gardens if they have unwanted guns.
First Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City uses power tools to get guns off the streets. Photo by Kristen Gaydos
“What a way to express the desire to remove guns from your home and to make sure that your guns do not get into the hands of anyone that you do not want them in,” she said during the recorded presentation.
The Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah periodically hosts opportunities for the public to turn in their guns to be transformed into garden tools. “Our biggest one, by far, was the one we did right after [the] Uvalde [Texas school shooting in 2022],” resulting in 43 weapons being turned in, and it’s not uncommon for someone to reach out privately to turn in a weapon, said Nancy Halden, the center’s communications director. She’s also affiliated with Community of Grace Presbyterian Church, another organization involved in Sunday’s event.
One of the main goals of Sunday’s event was to encourage churches around the country to join the Guns to Garden movement.
Although some churches are reluctant to get involved, “really all you need to get started is a chop saw,” a person to run it and some training, Halden said. “The Presbyterian Peace Fellowship offers a six-week training … and they walk you through the process.”
Margery Rossi, acting coordinator of the Gun Violence Prevention Ministry of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, said the event at First Presbyterian was a fabulous opportunity to spread the word about Guns to Gardens and what it means.
Beyond taking firearms off the street and getting unwanted firearms out of people’s homes, “it is a witness to our faith, and it is helping people to understand” that Presbyterians “can actually take steps to end gun violence,” Rossi said. Furthermore, “it is an opportunity for speaking the truth. It is an opportunity to bring healing to survivors, and it is a way of helping to keep our communities safe.”
Tahi and his best friend, Tivani Lopati, were killed in a shooting outside an area high school in 2022. Since then, it has stoked a desire in Maile to try to address gun violence in the community, and she was eager to beat a remnant from the gun in Sunday’s demo.
“For me, this experience is healing in a way, just to be in the process of dismantling a weapon,” she said. “I got kind of emotional.”
To learn more about Guns to Gardens and Presbyterian Peace Fellowships Action Circles, which prepare people and congregations to do their own events, go here.