After his father died 12 years ago, Rik Spier inherited a hunting rifle.
The 75-year-old from the northwest side didn’t know anything about guns. “I was handling it totally ignorant,” Spier said. “My son-in-law found two bullets I didn’t even know were there.”
Beau Underwood, senior pastor at Allisonville Christian Church, holds pieces of a destroyed firearm while speaking to attendees at the church on Sept. 20, 2026, in Indianapolis. The firearm was among 24 guns collected anonymously by volunteers the previous day to be destroyed and repurposed into art or tools. Credit: Doug McSchooler for Mirror Indy
To learn, Spier took lessons and went to a gun show. But, ultimately, he still wanted to get rid of the weapon: “You don’t want it to fall into the wrong hands. It’s very easy to have an accident.”
Now, Spier’s rifle will be softened and molded into something else. It was one of two dozen guns collected by volunteers at Allisonville Christian Church on Sept. 19. The weapons were broken down into pieces and collected by a blacksmith, who will use their spines to create new cookware, art, and garden tools.
It’s part of a national, faith-based movement called “Guns to Gardens.” The goal, organizers said, is to get guns off the streets and give people a safe way to dispose of them.
“We will make sure these guns can never hurt somebody again or in the future,” the Rev. Beau Underwood, the church’s senior pastor, told Mirror Indy. He referenced Isaiah 2:4: “And by doing that, we are living out the biblical vision of weapons being turned into plowshares.”
There have been at least 245 incidents of gun violence in Indianapolis so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that tracks shootings nationwide through media and police reports. That same data shows at least 80 people have been killed across the city in gun homicides, suicides, or accidents.
Creating a more peaceful world
David and Kristine Eggert, who helped lead the event, said they want to create a more peaceful world — starting in Indianapolis.
“The big thing about gun violence is people offering up thoughts and prayers,” said Kristine Eggert, a 75-year-old retired pastor. “But a prayer needs to lead you to standing up and doing something about it.”
Darren Bender-Beauregard, an organic farmer and blacksmith from Paoli, Indiana, details his plans for a gun barrel to David Eggert, who organized the event with his wife, Kristine, Sept. 20, 2026, at Allisonville Christian Church in Indianapolis.
On Sunday at the church, which is affiliated with the Disciples of Christ, members prayed over several guns that were dropped off anonymously. Children and adults sang hymns. The crowd repeated a refrain: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.”
Soon, the barrel of an AR-15 went into the forge and came out a fiery orange. It was the same color attendees wore as a symbol of the national movement to end gun violence.
“This is the very first gun I’ve forged,” blacksmith Darren Bender-Beauregard told churchgoers. “The plan is to make a garden trowel.”
The 45-year-old Mennonite is from Paoli, Indiana. The pacifist faith, he said, inspired him to join the event. As Bender-Beauregard repeatedly hit the gun barrel with a hammer, it gained a new shape.
Blacksmith Darren Bender-Beauregard, an organic farmer and blacksmith from Paoli, Indiana, uses an angle grinder on the barrel of a firearm Sept. 20, 2026, at Allisonville Christian Church in Indianapolis. Credit: Doug McSchooler for Mirror Indy
A bucket behind the blacksmith was full of pieces from additional handguns and assault rifles collected the day before, then sawed off by volunteers.
Mary Tuttle, was one of the “shepherds” of the guns. The 50-year-old, who also sings in the praise band, spoke with people who dropped them off.
“One car brought in two AR-15s and four semi-automatic handguns,” she told Mirror Indy. “They could have sold them for thousands of dollars.”
For each gun given up, the church offered a grocery store gift card — including some worth hundreds of dollars. Nearly everyone, including the car with the six weapons, declined the offer.
The encounter made Tuttle tear up. As a former school teacher in Indianapolis, she’d led 4-year-olds in lockdown drills. She often felt powerless sitting with the children in a bolted classroom with the lights off.
“Now, I know these guns are off the street,” Tuttle said. “They can’t be used in school shootings or by kids killing each other.”
‘Getting back at the gun’
Several members of the church lined up for the chance to strike the AR-15 barrel. The hammer was passed around.
Tandy Adams was among those who gripped it. The 58-year-old moved her family to the Castleton area years ago, partially to escape reminders of what they witnessed in west Texas.
On Sept. 8, 2016, a 14-year-old girl opened fire at Alpine High School. She injured another student and then killed herself. In the rush to respond to the scene, a U.S. Marshall also shot a Homeland Security Agent.
Tandy Adams, of Indianapolis, takes a turn hammering a gun barrel during a Guns to Gardens event Sept. 20, 2026, at Allisonville Christian Church in Indianapolis. Volunteers collected 24 guns anonymously at the church the previous day to be destroyed and repurposed into art or tools.
Adams recalled waiting outside the school in a panic. Teenagers came out with their hands above their heads. Her son, she said, hid in a closet; her husband, a teacher, was locked down in the guidance counselor’s office, watching the shooter’s movements on the school’s security cameras.
The shooting made immediate headlines, but it soon faded in the national consciousness. New school names took its place: Parkland. Sante Fe. Uvalde. Covenant.
Adams knows why: nobody was killed.
But that day still haunts her family. Everyone needed therapy. Anniversaries are like flashbacks.
Tandy picked up the hammer and took her turn against the AR-15.
“It almost was like I was getting back at the gun,” she told Mirror Indy. “Taking my power back from it.”
This article first appeared on Mirror Indy and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
