California Man Claims He Destroyed His AR-15 To Stop Mass Shootings

The nation is a little on edge regarding firearms. It’s also primed for people who want to pretend to be heroes to the anti-gun zealots, which may account for a recent news report from Riverside, CA. That’s where Chad Vachter decided to destroy his AR-15…and do it all in front of the camera.

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https://www.facebook.com/WFLANewsChannel8/videos/10159803107320500/

From WFLA:

One of Chad Vachter’s prized possessions was a thousand-dollar AR-15 assault rifle. After seeing the growing number of mass shootings in the country, Vachter said he was fed up and decided to take a hammer to his gun, destroying it.

“I can’t do it,” he said. “I can’t have something in my house that so easily could become a part of another situation like that, and I’m not going to be desensitized to it. I refuse to.”

Last month, 58 people were killed in a mass shooting at an outdoor music festival in Las Vegas. Earlier this month, a gunman opened fire inside a church and left 26 people dead in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Earlier this week, police say a gunman killed several people during a shooting rampage in several different locations in northern California, including an elementary school. Vachter says the incident hit close to home, and he had enough.

“The other night, when I read the thing about the school in northern California, I cried and I haven’t felt good since,” he said. “And although I’m still sad for all those victims and all the people affected, I feel like I’ve done the only thing that I can do in this equation. Even if it’s just a small thing, I did my part to make things better.”

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Vachter claims, “I can’t have something in my house that so easily could become a part of another situation like that, and I’m not going to be desensitized to it. I refuse to.” So he wrecks his gun.

Look, if Vachter thinks he’s likely to go on a mass shooting, then this is probably a solid course of action. He clearly doesn’t need to have access to firearms in such a case.

But I don’t think that’s what he’s doing.

No, I think Vachter is trying to look like a hero to his California neighbors. This is virtue signaling of the highest order, a way for him to signal that he might be a gun owner (assuming he had more than the M&P AR-15), but he’s not one of those gun owners. Why else wait until there are cameras handy to destroy your rifle?

I get it. If you live in California, it must be rough if you live in the blue parts of the state to be a gun owner. You’re probably constantly bombarded by anti-gun propaganda, so much so that you may actually start to believe that the rifle is somehow responsible for the shootings.

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It’s not.

Vachter accomplished nothing except to wreck his property on television. If he’s not about to become a mass killer, then no one is any safer without his rifle…except maybe any criminals who he could have protected his family from with that weapon.

Vachter isn’t a hero. He’s a grandstander.

Don’t get me wrong, if they’re his guns, he’s welcome to do whatever he wants to them so long as he doesn’t hurt anyone else in the process. Just don’t expect me to applaud him for it.

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