Ben Beers gives up AR-15 after Uvalde, Texas shooting in viral video

An Oregon gun owner went viral for having his AR-15 rifle and a handgun “destroyed” by police in the wake of the Uvalde school massacre.

Ben Beers delivered a passionate speech about changing the nation’s gun laws in a video posted on TikTok before delivering his firearms to a local police station.

“I no longer want them,” Ben Beers said in the video clip viewed by almost 200,000 users.

“I know this will not change legislation or anything to do with gun culture in America but hopefully it’ll be a form of symbolism and hopefully America can wake up because no other country has the problems that we do with gun culture and ideation and gun violence like we do.”

The weapons were given to the Hillsboro Police Department in Oregon the day after an evil gunman shot and killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers inside Robb Elementary School in Texas.

“I was up all night, tossing and turning, crying and shaking,” Beers, a former Marine, told KGW.

The husband and father of two told the television station he’s owned and sold other guns before, but the latest mass shooting—the worst school shooting since 2012—motivated him to just surrender them.

“I just want to turn them in, have them destroyed,” Beers said.

In an interview with CNN, Beers said he was sick of the gun violence in America. By handing in the guns, he felt he was on the “right path to doing something right.”

“Quite frankly, I’m sick of it. This devastation has happened for decades now and it’s no longer a recreational hobby,” he said. “Every time I look at this AR-15, every time I look at this weapon I’m reminded and haunted by the faces of evil, the innocent victims and quite frankly, by the tool, the most primary, effective tool used to commit these mass shootings.”