'It's like redemption art': Metal forging demonstration highlights prayer vigil, anti-gun violence memorial

A few Albuquerque high school and University of New Mexico students congregated for a prayer vigil and an anti-gun violence memorial Wednesday.

On a chilly late afternoon, they stood in front of the Luther House at UNM and watched as Robert F. Kennedy Charter School senior Cisco Quintana took a piece of a torn-apart 12-gauge shotgun barrel and turned it into a garden shovel head.

It is fun to come out and show people that “we can do so much with these guns,” Quintana said.

New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence runs a Guns to Gardens program that aims to reuse guns that have been donated at buyback events for creative purposes. The organization teamed up with the Luther House campus ministry and RFK Charter School to bring Wednesday’s demonstration to the UNM campus.

“Today, we will beat our guns into garden tools in an act of defiance, in an act of prayer, in an act of spirituality,” Luther House pastor, the Rev. Rhonda Newby-Torres, told guests.

Guns to Gardens began a couple of years ago when RFK Charter School students began working with New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence to learn how to craft vases, gardening tools and other items from firearms surrendered at buyback events.

“These guns were made to kill, and now they’re something that is going to sustain life, and I think that is a really important message to tell the state and country right now,” said New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence Co-President Miranda Viscoli.

Wednesday’s memorial was purposely scheduled to take place before the UNM and New Mexico State University men’s basketball game on Saturday to honor the victims of a shooting on the UNM campus and, Newby-Torres said, to “pray for the safety of everyone involved” at the game.

Almost exactly a year ago, a UNM student conspired with three other students to lure NMSU basketball player Mike Peake onto campus, which led to a shootout that left UNM student Brandon Travis dead and Peake wounded.

“The impact of this act of violence rippled far out into communities, beyond what we can repair with ‘thoughts and prayers,’” Newby-Torres said. “Today, we are gathered in memory, prayer, and action.”

The action was the creation of the shovel head by a group of current and former RFK Charter School students who want to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

UNM freshman A.J. Anderson, who attended RFK last year, told people inside the Luther House after the demonstration that what he did in the past is what groups like New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence are “fighting against.”

“For me, it’s like redemption art,” he said about forging. “It’s a good way for me to make up for every terrible thing I’ve ever done in my life.

“For me, it’s (also) a good way to get over that and make peace with myself. Because I messed up doesn’t mean I can’t do this and get a second chance in life.”

Anti Gun Violence