SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
For some Americans, guns are associated with self-defense or hunting. For others, they're reminders of pain and violence. In Western North Carolina, one organization is bringing together gun owners, faith communities and blacksmiths to turn guns into jewelry and garden tools. Rebecca Williams reports. And a warning - the story does mention suicide.
REBECCA WILLIAMS, BYLINE: In a church parking lot in downtown Asheville, Stan Wilson greets a group of volunteers.
STAN WILSON: Can we get in a circle so we can see each other? So welcome, everyone. I'm Stan.
WILLIAMS: Wilson is one of the organizers of RAWtools South.
WILSON: We have kind of an unusual niche. We take unwanted guns and turn them into garden tools and art.
WILLIAMS: Wilson is a pastor. He organizes churches and volunteers for events like this one, where Peggy Baldwin (ph) hands over a gun that she inherited from her father.
PEGGY BALDWIN: I felt that I would not be using the gun, and I didn't want to risk it winding up on the streets.
WILLIAMS: And she hopes that it can be used in a different way.
BALDWIN: My dad was an avid gardener, so I thought, you know, if it were turned into some kind of tool, that would be a good ending for this gun.
WILLIAMS: First, the volunteers make sure that the guns aren't loaded. Then they're chopped into pieces with heavy-duty saws and grinders.
(SOUNDBITE OF SAW RUNNING)
SCOTTY UTZ: This is the rear end of our receiver, so we need to cut here through our triggering mechanism.
WILLIAMS: This is where Scotty Utz comes in. Utz is the other organizer of RAWtools South. He's guiding the volunteers on the safe use of the saws.
UTZ: And what do you call out? Cutting.
UNIDENITIFIED VOLUNTEER: Cutting.
WILLIAMS: Once all the guns are dismantled, Utz brings the parts back to his shop in Weaverville, about 10 miles north of Asheville. It's a converted garage beneath his house. Utz is a blacksmith who transforms the gun parts with heat and a hammer. Inside his shop, an orange fire glows in a forge.
(SOUNDBITE OF FORGE FIRE ROARING)
WILLIAMS: Utz holds a shotgun barrel with a pair of tongs and puts it inside the fire.
(SOUNDBITE OF TAPPING)
WILLIAMS: Once the heat softens the metal, Utz takes it to his anvil, a heavy metal block with a flat surface. He begins to pound the barrel.
(SOUNDBITE OF HAMMERING)
UTZ: This is when I'm going to use the peen of my hammer 'cause I want to spread this material.
WILLIAMS: Eventually, Utz will transform the barrel into a garden spade. Most of the time, Utz works here alone. But sometimes he and Wilson work together at the forge, along with family members who've been affected by gun violence. That's how they connected with Teresa Schrachta.
TERESA SCHRACHTA: My son, Lance Corporal Alexander Schrachta, was active-duty in the Marine Corps, and we lost him to suicide while he was on the barracks.
WILLIAMS: Alex was 19.
SCHRACHTA: I was informed that I would receive that firearm. And I was horrified by that thought.
WILLIAMS: A report by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that someone died of gun suicide in the U.S. every 19 minutes in 2023, the year that Alex died. When Schrachta and her three remaining children met Utz and Wilson at the shop, Utz had the gun on an anvil.
SCHRACHTA: I went in very gung-ho on destroying it. I was happy to pound on that thing and take everything out on it. By the end, we were transforming it into jewelry.
WILLIAMS: Schrachta's two daughters made heart pendants. Her youngest son turned the gun's slide into a dog tag, and Schrachta wears a cross made from the barrel of Alex's gun.
SCHRACHTA: It's so symbolic. It's this hard thing that goes in, and it comes out soft, and you can transform it into something different.
(SOUNDBITE OF HAMMERING)
WILLIAMS: And the healing that comes from this transformation is part of the reason they do this, says Wilson. When you think there's nothing that can be done, he says, you can always create some art. For NPR News, I'm Rebecca Williams in Buncombe County, North Carolina.
DETROW: This story was produced by Nicole Musgrave. You can hear a longer version of the story on the Rural Remix podcast.
And if you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
(SOUNDBITE OF AYANNA SONG, "GIRLFRIEND") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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