A coworker of mine talked about guns, hunting, General redneck-y shit from time to time. I knew he was a gun but but I lived in East Texas when I was a child, and go back there or to Arkansas several times a year, so while I dont like guns and never approved assault rifles for civilians (granted, a nebulous term), someone owning a gun is a far from foreign concept.



We were in the same room when the Sandy Hook news broke. Ironically, we were co-teaching the same class. That news came across the computer and we were kind of done actively teaching for the day.



He didnt see the need to give up his AR-15. It was his favorite plinking-in-the-desert rifle. Not one of his hunting rifles, of home defense guns, or self defense guns, or bird guns, but it was his favorite. Rather, they were his favorite.



I worked at him for years about sensible gun control  it would be surprising to many of you how much a gun nut and a radical leftist like me can agree when it comes to firearms. There is tons of middle ground.



So, eventually (and darkly coincidentally), the Friday before October 1 I asked him what was up, still shooting, etc. He told me that hed remembered what Id said a million times about the direct correlation between gun ownership and suicide. His adult son has gotten divorced and temporarily moved back home; his dad, my friend, had sold off several of his guns and used the proceeds to buy a nice gun safe. Hed also stopped leaving them around the house (for defense, as if Mescalero Apaches were coming at any moment, instead of living in one of the safest communities in America).



A week later we found ourselves making arrangements to attend the funeral of a mutual friend murdered on October 1. He volunteered the information that hed remembered how is thrown my handguns in the trash after Newtown, and had used his power tools to render his AR-15 unusable by anyone ever again. Apparently it still looks cool, though.



So yes: I know ONE person who actually got rid of their AR-15.



He wouldnt have surrendered his, but he would have happily never bought one if they werent available.



It took years of conversations  YEARS  and watching a dozen mass shooting tragedies on TV, and a child with suicidal ideations, and he had to personally know someone killed in or affected by a mass shooting.