SCOTCHTOWN, N.Y. — A New York man is going viral after he took to Facebook to record himself destroying his AR-15 rifle. Scott Pappalardo said he legally purchased and registered the gun more than 30 years ago and that he is also a firm believer in the Second Amendment. He even has it tattooed on his arm.
“I’m not a hunter, I’ve never killed anything with it. Except a bunch of targets,” he says in the video.
But after a 19-year-old used an AR-15 to kill 17 people at a high school in Florida on Wednesday, Pappalardo said that he had enough.
“Is the right to own this weapon more important than someone’s life? Look at the pictures of those victims. Is that right more important?” Pappalardo said in the video before saying he wants to make sure his gun is never capable of taking someone’s life.
He also added that although mental illness, violent video games and bad parenting can contribute, “ultimately, it’s a gun like this one that takes away the lives.”
He then got up, walked over to his sawing machine, and cut his rifle into pieces.
“Now, there’s one less,” he said. “I hope and I pray that it doesn’t take the barrel of one of those guns pointed at your child’s head to change your mind.”
The video has been shared more than 210,000 times.
