Oregon man destroys guns, claims it's to reduce violence

AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File

Like many of you, I have a number of guns sitting in my gun safe. To my knowledge, only one has been used to take human life, and it’s an SKS my father brought back from Vietnam. I have another that might have–a Yugo SKS with a Serbian crest carved into the stock.

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None, however, have been fired at an individual since I obtained them. Absolutely none.

The same can be true of most people’s guns.

However, an Oregon man went on TikTok to destroy his own weapons, he says to combat violence.

A Hillsboro man is getting national attention on social media after turning his two firearms over to police to be destroyed following the mass shooting at an elementary school in Texas.

“Today I’m turning in my weapons to the Hillsboro Police Department in Oregon, both my AR-15 and my nine millimeter handgun. I no longer want them,” said Ben Beers in his now viral TikTok post.

Next, Beers will cut off his junk in order to combat sexual assault.

After all, that makes just as much sense as getting rid of your guns because of someone else’s actions. If you’re going to destroy your guns because of what a third party did with a completely different weapon, then clearly your sexual organs are just as responsible for rape as the rapist’s organs are.

Then again, Beers has his perspective a little skewed.

“Which is a good thing,” said Beers. “Hopefully, soon we can all wake up and realize this needs to be done… this is an idea. Guns are not as precious to us and nor are my Second Amendment rights as the lives of my children in school.”

Beers and his wife have two daughters. By the time they’re grown, he said he hopes access to guns in America will look different.

“I can’t even find a PlayStation 5, but I can go get a Glock, you know?” said Beers.

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Understand, my daughter is the same age as those killed in Uvalde. I hold her as one of the most important things in my life along with my son and my wife.

But where Beers screws up is in thinking this is a binary thing, that you can’t hold your children precious and support gun rights. Your Second Amendment rights preserve your ability to protect those things you hold dear.

Then again, I don’t think any of that is what matters to Beers.

No, what mattered to him was having the opportunity to virtue signal. He wanted to get followers and likes on TikTok and used the tragedy and his supposed response to it in order to get them.

He hasn’t made anyone safer.

Hell, following Parkland, a number of people pulled the exact same thing, making a big show of destroying their firearms. Since then, violent crime has skyrocketed.

Now, I’m not saying them destroying their guns caused the spike by any means. However, destroying their guns damn sure didn’t do anything to help, either.

On the same token, Beers hasn’t actually done anything of value, either.

But hey, now he can say he’s big on TikTok. 14-year-old girls everywhere will be totally jealous.

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