The True Nature Of The “Viral” #OneLess Movement – And The Real Danger Behind It

Originally Posted at Free Market Shooter; Authored by Jon Hall

After the recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida, the mainstream media has been on a righteous crusade against firearms.

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Only a week after the heinous incident that left 17 dead, the legacy media has been mobilized to decry and demonize guns – using the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School as their own political pawns. However, on Tuesday night, NBC Nightly News took the effort to vilify firearms to an entirely new level with the #OneLess movement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLjbSWOAdZk&feature=youtu.be

In the NBC report, they highlight Scott Pappalardo – a gun-owner who uploaded a Facebook video showcasing him destroying his AR-15 and igniting the “viral” movement. In the video, as he destroys the gun, Pappalardo can be heard saying:

I’m going to make sure this weapon will never be able to take a life. Now, there’s one less.

NBC’s Savannah Guthrie even talks up the #OneLess movement at the beginning of the report, boasting that the movement is “going viral” – even though mainstream media can only find four confirmed cases of firearm owners actually destroying their weapons (which they have broadcasted repeatedly as evidence of the “viralness” of #oneless).  

For the most part, the #OneLess hashtag has been an exercise in trolling and/or virtue-signaling.

For instance, we have one user claiming to have “destroyed” his AR-15 when in reality, it’s just disassembled:

Another user virtue-signals (or trolls) by showing a handgun that’s supposedly been “destroyed” but has only been field-stripped:

Yet another user simply either virtue-signaling (or trolling) with an image of another “destroyed” gun that’s just been disassembled:

Perusing the #OneLess hashtag, it’s obvious that – amongst the sole few who actually did destroy their guns – the rest are in it for the notoriety and retweets. Even with the 17 million views amassed by Pappalardo’s original video, #OneLess has far more trolls than it does destroyed firearms.

Furthermore, the concept behind the movement is fundamentally flawed. Although the mainstream media acts like they are, guns aren’t conscious beings and cannot sneak out of the house and shoot someone – a finger has to be pulling the trigger to fire. Unless Pappalardo and any others who destroyed their rifles were planning a mass-shooting and kept their firearms secured, the #OneLess call-to-action accomplishes absolutely nothing.

Going even further, a gun might be your last defense between life and death if push comes to shove. If a maniac opens fire in a school, church, or any other “gun-free” public setting, the only thing that can incapacitate them and effectively end their killing spree is another gun. “#OneLess” gun means one less firearm to defend yourself or your family with in a potential time of dire need.

Bear in mind, criminals and felons aren’t destroying their guns to show how progressive they are. However, virtue signaling peddled by the anti-second Amendment mainstream media is being used in an attempt to turn law-abiding gun owners into criminals.

Editor’s note: A couple very major facts have been omitted by not just mainstream media, but by firearms writers/bloggers, who have rightfully pointed out that Pappalardo improperly dismantled his firearm, and may have illegally created an SBR in the process.  

Pappalardo’s rifle clearly has an “A1” grip that is common of the earliest AR-15s produced in the Vietnam War era.  Unless Pappalardo’s rifle was a collector’s item or a pre-ban Class III full-auto, he was destroying a very old AR iteration that likely had very little (if any) resale value.  

The stunt is even more suspect when you consider that Pappalardo lives in New York State.  Under the NY SAFE Act, all new AND existing “assault weapons” had to have been registered with the state no later than April 15th, 2014.  Pappalardo’s rifle clearly has a pistol grip and a muzzle brake (or flash hider, barrel shroud, or compensator, if you want to be specific), making it a “banned” item.  New York State’s rate of compliance with the SAFE Act is about 4%, making the odds very high that Pappalardo was illegally owning and possessing his rifle in the first place.  

If he wanted to get rid of this old weapon because he was owning it illegally, this would be one novel way to do so without facing risk of prosecution.  That is, if he didn’t dismantle it illegally in the first place.