If you’re going to post a video on Facebook of yourself destroying an AR-15 to make your position on guns clear for all to see, you might want to make sure you’re actually destroying the gun and not effectively turning it into a short-barreled rifle.
Apparently, Karen Mallard, a Democrat candidate for Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, didn’t bother to inform herself about the proper laws before cutting the barrel off her husbands AR-15 and posting it on Facebook. Despite her intentions, she’s now under investigation by The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
Mallard says her husband purchased the AR-15 a while back and she wasn’t happy about it. She decided she was finally going to do something about it. It’s no surprise that many have accused her of political grandstanding — an act as common as breathing for politicians these days — for her sudden outrage over a gun that she apaprently was only angry enough to destroy when she thought it could give her some political advantage.
She insists she did nothing wrong and followed proper procedure. The firearm has since been turned over to the Virginia Beach Police Department and the ATF is “looking into the situation.”
Her post with the video can be seen below:
I took a personal stand for gun safety and I’m not backing down. A staffer took down this video to try to protect me from these vicious comments, but I’m not the one that needs protection our children do.
And yes for all the NRA trolls out there, I finished the job according to regulation and turned it over to the police. Why are you more outraged about me taking a gun out of circulation than about our children being murdered in our schools?
Thanks for listening and sharing. We need gun reform now.#SafeguardOurChildren
We’ll see what happens with that situation, but as long as they were responsible gun owners who properly stored the AR-15 and made sure only they had access to it, whether or not the firearm was “in circulation” wouldn’t make a difference.
