Florida man willingly surrenders AR-style rifle after school shooting. His reason why has gone viral

Less than two days after the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, a longtime, law-abiding gun owner surrendered his AR-style rifle to law enforcement.

A Facebook post describing the reason why has gone viral.

What happened?

The day after the shooting, Ben Dickmann vowed to surrender his AR-57 rifle, the same style of firearm used by the Florida shooter just of a different caliber. The AR-15 shoots a 5.56 mm round, while the AR-57 shoots a 5.7 mm round.

On Friday, he did just that, surrendering the firearm to his local Broward County Sheriff precinct.

"I’m putting my money where my mouth is,” Dickmann wrote. "This is an AR-FiveSeven, I own this rifle. It’s a caliber variant of the AR-15. I am a responsible, highly trained gun owner."

"However, I do not need this rifle. No one without a law enforcement badge needs this rifle,” he explained. "I have surrendered this rifle to the Broward Sheriff at the Tamarac Post. I could have easily sold this rifle, but no person needs this. I will be the change I want to see in this world. If our lawmakers will continue to close their eyes and open their wallets, I will lead by example."

Dickmann posted pictures of his rifle and a Broward County Sheriff's deputy filling out paperwork to accept the surrendered firearm along with his message.

In his Thursday Facebook post, Dickmann vowed to not sit idly by and not act while more massacres take place. In that post, he offered three suggestions of steps to take to come to a reasonable solution to the problem.

First, he said the development and importation of "new military style semi-automatic weapons and replacement parts" needs to end. Second, he said the Second Amendment should be limited to "militias," and finally, he said urged better "control and training requirements" for firearm ownership.

"We need to start, we need to act. We need to be the generation that says enough is enough and we are going to start the wheels to stop this," Dickmann wrote. "I know this is not going to stop overnight, but, if we don’t start to actually DO SOMETHING it will NEVER STOP."

The post of Dickmann's rifle surrender has gone viral, receiving more than 550,000 reactions and nearly one-quarter million shares.

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