Day 14

I got up at 5:40 am and then got picked up at 6 by Mike from church, who runs Raw Tools.  We drove up to Denver and got set up for a gun buyback.  We had to set up lots of metal chop saws and lots of tents.  Then we had about 50 volunteers show up to help run the event.  Here is the rundown of how it all works.  We were set up in a church parking lot, so we directed people into the parking lot where there were greeters waiting to thank them for coming.  We try to be extremely welcoming because you never know where people are coming from when they show up with guns to turn in.  We had a huge turnout out so the line was very backed up.  Once people are in the parking lot, they are met with a shepherd.  That was my job.  We took whoever was next in line and handed them a quick survey, which we make sure there was no pressure on them and that they would be kept anonymous.  Since people are not allowed to get out of their vehicles, it is our job to walk alongside them through the whole process.  When it is their turn, we have our safety inspection team take the guns out of their vehicle and make sure they are not loaded, and they decide what class the gun is in.  The higher the class, the more powerful the gun is and the more it's worth.  Class 1 is worth 50 dollars, class 2 is 150 dollars, and class 3 is 250 dollars.  Then the guns are carried to our disarmament team.  There are specific cuts that have to be made to legally disarm the gun.  I don't know exactly what these are, but I know the barrel has to be cut in a few different ways.  As they are cutting, we ask that the people turning in the guns watch their guns being cut apart, so we walk the cars down to the cutting area and stand with the person the whole time.  When the guns are officially dismantled, we give the person their gift cards, but we can't before because they can't leave until the guns are legally destroyed.  We then have another group of people thanking them again for coming.  Now I'll try and explain the legal process.  You are not allowed to actually call it a buyback because that would be a legal exchange of a firearm, which would mean having to change ownership.  We give them gift cards as a gift for turning in their gun, not a payment.  We can't let the people leave before the gun is destroyed because then it would be stealing.  It is not stealing if the person is on the scene when the gun is destroyed.  We also don't give them the gift cards until after the gun is destroyed, so they don't leave early.  I feel like that was really confusing, so if you have questions, you can call or text me, and I would love to talk more.  The first person I shepherded through the line had 10 guns to turn in, which I was told is a lot for 1 person.  He was turning them in because he didn't have a good place to store them, and he had four kids.  The amount of guns made the process take a lot longer than most people, so I didn't help very many people.  It did feel really good to hand this guy 1000 dollars' worth of gift cards when it was all over.  The next person I helped, I was subbed in, so I don't know a whole lot, but I did have a nice conversation with the gentleman.  The third and final person I walked with had 7 guns to turn in, so I had a lot for some reason.  He was another really chill guy who was fun to talk to.  After the event was over, I helped pack everything home and then got a ride home with a different Mike.  He treated me to Chick-fil-A, and we had a lot of deep discussion on the drive home.  When I got home, I took some time to relax and then headed over to a nearby high school football game.  It was actually a really good game and ended with a game-winning field goal.

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