Well before the mass shootings on Saturday that left one person dead and 19 injured in Detroit, Rochester Hills and Lathrup Village, the Rev. Chris Yaw was organizing six gun buyback events. The Southfield pastor wanted to do more, especially after learning guns collected at previous Metro Detroit buybacks weren’t destroyed by the company selected to do so.
He learned from media reports that some firearm parts were recycled and sold for reuse. So he started shopping for specialty saws to ensure collected guns and parts couldn’t be used again. Related Articles On Tuesday, he and a dozen area religious leaders gathered at St.
David’s Episcopal Church in Southfield to announce several summer buybacks and demonstrate how collected firearms would be destroyed on site using the saws after information about each is collected for law enforcement. The rising number of mass shootings are now the leading cause of death for children and “they are tragically desensitizing,” said Yaw, a board member of the End Gun Violence Michigan group. Bishop Bonnie Perry, from the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan, said a blessing over the saws before two BB guns were cut in pieces according to federal rules.
She invoked a Bible verse from the Book of Isaiah: ”...
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” https://www.atf.
gov/firearms/how-properly-destroy-firearms Kare.
