Guns into Plowshares Sculpture

'Guns Into Plowshares’ returns to Washington
after 7 years in Virginia

2024  This sculpture is a  16-foot tall steel plow and has more than 3,000 handguns welded into the sculptural form. 

It is called Guns into Plowshares and was created by Esther Augsburger, an artist. 

The photo to the left is Gary Suter.  Gary's brother, Everett, helped Esther with creating the huge plowshare form and with welding the guns to the plowshare.  

 

 You can see some of the guns welded to the sculpture.
The guns were turned into the police department as part of a voluntary surrender program, and holes were torched into the guns' firing mechanisms so they could not be reused. "

2024 Esther now lives in VMRC
(Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community)

Esther's husband is Myron Augsburger who was the president of EMU from 1965 - 1980.

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Here are other reports about this magnificent statue:

The "Guns Into Plowshares" sculpture, dedicated Oct. 10, will be at Eastern Mennonite University for two to three years before returning to its original exhibition site in Judiciary Square outside the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department.

The sculpture contains several thousand handguns, including 10 from the Harrisonburg Police Department. Esther Augsburger, wife of President Emeritus Myron Augsburger, and son Michael created the sculpture in the late '90s. 

"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 any more."  Isaiah 2:4

Esther's was born in India, where her parents were missionaries. The mixture of American and Indian cultures is evident in Augsburger's work.

The process was slow since Augsburger took home boxes of guns at a time, and she had to obtain permission to place the sculpture from nine federal and city commissions. Augsburger says that the sculpture's message is peace. "When we lay down our weapons, then we can have peace," she says. 

Here's a clip from the TV station WHSV here is Harrisonburg, Virginia in 2024 about moving the statue from EMU (Eastern Mennonite University) back to Washington, DC.

https://www.whsv.com/2024/10/22/statue-dedicated-gun-violence-awareness-leaves-emus-campus/