Orange County Dad Fed Up With Thoughts, Prayers Gives Up AR-15

TUSTIN, CA — After the mass slaughter at a Florida high school, Rodd Mann was tired of hearing "thoughts and prayers" offered to the victims and their families. The Orange County man was so fed up that he took apart his AR-15 assault-style rifle — a weapon he'd built with his teenage son — walked into a local police station and handed it over to be destroyed.

The mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland had "distressingly similar details" in the profile of the suspect and his weapon, Mann wrote in a post on LinkedIn. According to the organization Gun Violence Archive, there have been 34 mass shootings in America this year. There have also been 18 school shootings.

"At this rate we may end the year with as many as a couple hundred," Mann writes. "Each incident ends the same. A lot of press conferences where people express outrage while extending their 'thoughts and prayers' to the grieving, and finger pointing at the root cause for the atrocity. Then things finally quiet down and nothing else happens. Until the next one."

Mann, who grew up in Wisconsin and said he used to hunt with his father, says people used to leave their doors unlocked. They once walked into each other's homes — unannounced — and vacationed together. Not anymore, he says.

"All that has changed. Today there is fear and rage in the air, you can almost see it: oppressive, ominous, vexing, troubling and evil," he writes. "Though the finger-pointing ranges from parental neglect to mental illness, to violent videos, to the availability of high-powered weapons, I believe all of these things are a manifestation of something far worse."

America doesn't fear or worship God anymore, Mann says.

"The love is gone and consequently love of thy neighbor likewise disappeared," he writes.

All this led him to talk with his 16-year-old son about getting rid of the gun once and for all. His son agreed.

"We could have sold it to recover most of our $1,000 investment, but that would not guarantee that another evil maniac wouldn’t eventually get his hands on it," Mann writes.

So on Saturday, he walked into the Tustin police station and surrendered the weapon.

He left his readers with one last note:"May God have mercy on our nation, once blessed and mighty, now apostate and weakening by the day."

Click here to read his letter open letter on LinkedIn.

See also: Gun Owner Outraged By Mass Killings Cuts Up His AR-15 (Video)

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