Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters made clear his position that guns are not bad, but some individuals are.
Waters said this the day after a suspect in his 20s allegedly opened fire in a Jacksonville Dollar General store, killing three people.
In a video posted by Breaking 911, Waters said, “The Story’s always about guns. People are bad; this guy’s a bad guy. [But] if I take my gun off right now and 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.”
The suspect in the shooting was allegedly armed with a handgun, which Waters used in his example, and an AR-15-style rifle. Police have yet to clarify which gun he used in the attack.
The suspect apparently took his own life after shooting the three individuals.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at
