Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters slammed the political Left’s anti-gun narrative over the weekend in response to a racially motivated shooting that killed three people at a Dollar General store that has been deemed as racially motivated.
The assailant, a white male in his early 20s, left behind manifestos that made it clear that he was specifically targeting black people.
“The story is always about guns — people are bad — this guy’s a bad guy,” Waters said. “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.”
“The problem is the individual,” he added. “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.”
The assailant was able to legally purchase firearms despite the fact that he had been placed on a temporarily involuntarily mental health hold in 2017 under the state’s Baker Act.
WATCH:
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
“This shooting, based on the manifesto that they’ve discovered from the scumbag that did this, was racially motivated,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said on Saturday. “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.”
“He took the coward’s way out,” he continued. “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.”