Gun grabbers in Shepherdstown, West Virginia thought they had a perfect plan.
A woke church with a pride flag on its pulpit had been shredding firearms for years – and nobody ever showed up to stop them.
This time, someone showed up with a plan the church never anticipated – and things escalated fast.
The Guns to Gardens Program That Thought No One Would Show Up
Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church – the one that advertises its "LGBTQIA+ inclusion" on its homepage – has been running "Guns to Gardens" events since 2023.
The deal: show up with a firearm, hand it over for a gift card worth a fraction of what it's actually worth, watch it get cut into pieces on-site and turned into a garden trowel or a "piece of art."
Gun owners were offered $50 for handguns, $100 for rifles and shotguns, and $200 for semi-automatic rifles at the event.
West Virginia Freedom Caucus Chairman Del. S. Chris Anders had a better offer.
How to Counter a Gun Buyback the Right Way
Anders coordinated with DS Gunworks owner Dave – a federally licensed firearms dealer and Class III dealer – and showed up with more than 40 volunteers offering fair market value in cash.
Perfectly legal.
Fully compliant with federal, state, and local law including the National Firearms Act.
Standing right next to the church's destruction table.
Among the firearms saved: a Colt Officers' Target handgun worth hundreds of dollars that nearly went into the saw for a $50 gift card.
A classic Remington Nylon 77 – a collectible that holds a five-round magazine and differs from the more common Nylon 66.
Multiple new-in-box firearms that had never been fired.
"These were not broken or unusable firearms," Anders said. "These were pieces of history and new, functioning firearms. Destroying them does nothing to stop crime – it only disarms the law-abiding and erases history."
The church called law enforcement on the counter-protesters.
Officers arrived, reviewed the situation, and determined Anders and his team were acting completely within the law.
"That is exactly how this should work," Anders said. "Citizens exercising their rights peacefully, lawfully, and without interference."
Gun Buyback Programs Do Not Reduce Crime and Never Have
Gun buybacks have been a staple of the Left's disarmament playbook since the 1990s.
The premise: convince people their guns are dangerous objects worth less than a Visa gift card, then destroy them.
The National Bureau of Economic Research studied 339 gun buyback programs across 277 American cities and found no evidence they reduce gun crime.
Zero evidence of reduction in suicides or homicides involving firearms either.
RAND Corporation reviewed the full body of research and reached the same conclusion.
The guns turned in at buyback events are almost never the guns used in crimes – they're grandpa's revolver, a broken shotgun in a closet, a widow who doesn't know what she has and gets $50 for a firearm worth ten times that.
At a previous Shepherdstown event, volunteers ran a Harper's Ferry musket – an irreplaceable piece of American history – through a power saw for scrap metal and a Facebook post.
The Second Amendment Counter That Has Gun Grabbers Furious
Second Amendment supporters have been crashing buyback events since at least 2014, when collectors lined up outside a Seattle event with cash and signs – one man jumped out of his car in the traffic line and pocketed $500 before ever reaching the buyback table.
In 2022, a single activist in Utica, New York handed 110 3D-printed firearms to Attorney General Letitia James' buyback event and walked away with over $21,000 in gift cards for pieces of plastic.
Anders went further than most counter-protesters: he brought licensed dealers, followed every law to the letter, and made the whole operation untouchable before he arrived.
When the church called the cops, the cops sided with him.
He's now calling on Second Amendment supporters nationwide to run the same play – bring licensed dealers, follow every applicable law, stand adjacent to the event, and offer fair value.
Democrats and their activist allies have spent years running these events in churches and fire stations across America, relying on guilt, grief, and ignorance to separate people from property worth far more than they're being paid.
Anders showed what happens when someone with knowledge of the law simply shows up and makes a better offer.
The church was furious.
Law enforcement sided with the good guys.
And somewhere in West Virginia, a Colt Officers' Target handgun is sitting on a shelf instead of being fed into a saw for a leftist church's Instagram page.
"Every gun melted down is proof that some people would rather destroy freedom than defend it," Anders said.
Sources:
- Harold Hutchison and Ryan Meilstrup, "Republican Lawmaker Crashes Woke Church's Gun Buyback Scheme With Ingenious Play," Daily Caller News Foundation, May 11, 2026.
- Dave Workman, "Gun Owners, Activists Counter WV 'Buyback' by Shepherdstown Church," The Gun Mag, May 2026.
- West Virginia Freedom Caucus, press release, May 4, 2026.
- RealWV Staff, "Chairman of the WV Freedom Caucus Leads Effort to Rescue Firearms From Shepherdstown Buyback Event," The Real WV, May 7, 2026.
- Ferrazares, Sabia, and Anderson, "Have US Gun Buyback Programs Misfired?" National Bureau of Economic Research, 2021.
