Joel Shenk believes his hammer is an instrument of peace.
On an October day, he repeatedly smashed it down into an anvil at Toledo Mennonite Church, where he serves as a pastor. The red-hot metal on the receiving end once had a life as a weapon.
“It becomes in a way like Play-Doh,” he said, as he loaded a rifle barrel into the roaring forge. “And you can slowly shape it into a different form.”
Right now, he’s forging the former shotgun into a gardening tool. Shenk is a part of a national movement, called RAW Tools, that takes firearms and transforms them into means for cultivation. Guns, donated from community members and from the police department, are turned into spades, hoes and mattocks.
“You take something that was in the community, causing harm in the community, whatever it might have been, and then you transform it into something that is more of a symbol of hope, and of life,” Shenk said.
Swords into plowshares
The RAW Tools movement began in Colorado with Mike Martin in 2012. He was inspired by passages from Isaiah and Matthew about turning swords into plowshares. His organization brought that idea into a modern form.
When RAW Tools visited Toledo Mennonite Church in 2016, Shenk was moved. He saw it as a way to put his faith into action.
“You look around and you think of the gun violence that we see in the news and in all different forms. And think what can I do? How can I have an impact?” he said.
He started learning the basics of blacksmithing. It wasn’t long until he was doing demonstrations of his own, bringing his portable forge and a message of nonviolence, to communities across northwest Ohio. In addition to his homebase of Toledo, he has shown off his craft in Lima and Defiance.
“It can be very therapeutic and very healing,” Shenk said. “In the larger RAW tools network, there was a story of a woman who did lose her son to gun violence and they were able to get that gun and work on it. And so then she was a part of transforming the very thing that led to her son's death.”
“Not only is the gun being transformed, but people are finding that they are transformed through it.”
“The tools we use”
Shenk said he typically can make two or three tools out of a single gun. He estimates he’s made around 20 different garden tools out of guns. But, Shenk said it’s about more than just the end-product. It’s a way of shifting perspective.
“We shape our tools and then our tools shape us,” he said. “If all you have is a gun … you're going to see your world as potential targets.”
Toledo has averaged around 60 fatal shootings and more than 200 non-fatal shootings since 2021, according to an analysis by the National Institute of Criminal Justice Reform.
Many times, when Shenk is doing demonstrations, he sets up his forge beside local conflict mediation organizations, counseling agencies and mental health nonprofits. Much like he views garden tools as alternatives to guns, he sees these organizations as potential remedies against violence.
“There's ways of de-escalating violence that are at our disposal that can prevent a lot of the destruction that can happen,” he said.
Transformation
After he shapeshifted the rifle beyond recognition, he sanded down the metal, sparks flying as he smoothed out the surface. He brushed it until the small shovel shined.
These final touches are Shenk’s favorite part of the process. It’s the last step in transforming the metal from a tool that ends life into a tool that nurtures it. And, unlike the complex issue of gun violence, the newly formed spade is tangible and easy to grasp.
“It takes a very big and abstract problem and brings it down to size,” Shenk said. “Maybe big abstract problems aren't going to be solved by big abstract solutions. They're going to be solved by everyday solutions and how individuals lives are transformed – sometimes by picking up a hammer.”
