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.”
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.”…