Virtue signalling is a sad thing to see. At least when it’s harmless to anyone else.
It’s sad because, when it’s done, it’s so very obvious to everyone else that the person doing the virtue signalling is simply trying to get attention by doing something under the pretext that their “sacrifice” puts them on the moral highground.
In the case of one guy, though, it seems likely that his virtue signalling isn’t going to do anything but make him a target.
What do I mean? What we have is a guy who virtue signaled by voluntarily turning his guns into his local police even though this wasn’t required of him. John Boch writes,
We all thought that Florida Man sets the hightest bar for head-scratching moments. Now an Oregon man by the name of Ben Beers rolled his only ace in the game of conspicuous virtue signaling to step up and challenge Florida Man to hold his beer(s).
Mr. Beers’ claim to fame: he has publicized his act of contrition in surrendering his AR-15 rifle and a 9mm pistol to the Hillsboro, Oregon police department for destruction as a result of the Uvalde school massacre.
Of course, he didn’t surrender those guns for altruistic reasons or he wouldn’t have taken the time put up a TikTok video to celebrate the sacrifice he’s making for the greater good.
Instead this was a “Look at me!” move clearly made in an attempt to snag fifteen seconds of fame.
Okay, so, maybe you’re saying to yourself, “Obviously, this guy is an idiot, but how has he made himself a target?”
That’s a great question. Here is the answer: We all know that mass shooters specifically target gun-free zones because they can do as much evil as possible without anyone shooting back. It would be foolish, though, to think that petty criminals don’t do the same thing by targeting the defenseless.
This guy just publicized to the world that he is defenseless against anyone robbing, mugging, assaulting, or otherwise committing a crime against him. Chances are that this guy hasn’t studied any martial arts with real-world applications (those types of people don’t tend to virtue signal on TikTok). So, any criminal who recognizes this guy, who do you think that they will target? Yes, this guy.
So, yes, this guy may have gotten his I’m-better-than-you jollies from doing something in public that he says he thinks will make the world safer when the truth is that he has just made the world more dangerous both for him and everyone else by not being able to defend himself or anyone else.
And possibly the saddest thing about people like this is that they vote.
That’s why you can’t stop trying to educate anti-2A people with the truth so that they can begin to understand and vote with wisdom about firearms and self-protection that they don’t currently have.