During a press conference that followed a tragic shooting that left three dead at a Dollar General in Jacksonville, Florida, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters slammed the left’s anti-gun narrative and use of the tragedy to push gun control. He said that the issue is the sickness of the individual, not anything with the guns.
Speaking about that, Sheriff Waters first noted that guns do nothing by themselves and that it is rather a problem with the person who is using the gun for evil ends, with a bad person being necessary for tragedies to result, not just a firearm.
Making that point, he said, “The story is always about guns — people are bad — this guy’s a bad guy. If I could take my gun off right now, and I lay it on this counter, nothing will happen. It’ll sit there — but as soon as wicked person grabs ahold of that handgun and starts shooting people with it — there’s the problem.”
Continuing, he added that law enforcement tries to stop such people from obtaining weapons but that this time the preventative strategy failed, saying, “The problem is the individual. Now guns are a tool that people use to do horrible things. But it’s the individuals that wield these things. So we are working hard to try to stop that. But in this situation, in this case, there was nothing saying – there was nothing illegal about him owning the firearms.”
People commenting on the above video largely agreed with Sheriff Waters. One commenter, for example, said, “Common sense needs a new name because it’s not common anymore. Sheriff Waters is exactly right and I applaud him, but 50 years ago this statement would have been unnecessary. I miss common sense. “Crazy” is the new ‘common.‘”
Similarly, another commenter agreed and made a funny analogy, saying, “Exactly! Guns aren’t the problem, it’s the individual. Just like my pencil didn’t fail the exam.”
Some, however, disagreed and blamed the weapons used rather than the individual who used them. One of those commenters said, “How can people be so stpd? The shooter was ENABLED to take human lives because of the easy accessibility to guns. You can’t ban the individual, before he commits the act. After the shooting, you can’t bring those lives back, so, ban sale of guns and ammo to civilians.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, speaking about the shooter, said, “He took the coward’s way out. We condemn what happened in the strongest possible terms. We’ve offered support for Sheriff Waters in the city of Jacksonville, and we send our condolences to the victims and their families who were the victims of a very cowardly act.”
Governor DeSantis also said, “This shooting, based on the manifesto that they’ve discovered from the scumbag that did this, was racially motivated. He was targeting people based on their race — that is totally unacceptable. This guy killed himself rather than face the music and accept responsibility for his actions.”
Jacksonville County Sheriff T.K. Waters:
“The story is always about guns. People are bad. This guy's a bad guy… The problem is the individual.”
— Alec Lace (@AlecLace) August 27, 2023
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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