In the wake of a shooting at a Jacksonville, Florida, Dollar General on Saturday, Sheriff T.K. Waters delivered an important reminder about what — or who specifically — is to blame for the tragic loss of life.
"The story is always about guns," Sheriff Waters commented at a press conference of media coverage following the weekend shooting. Rather than the gun being the root of the problem, however, Waters argued, "people are bad."
"This guy's a bad guy," Sheriff Waters continued of the gunman who's been identified as someone who acted on a "disgusting ideology of hate" against black people, according to Waters. "If I could take my gun off right now, and lay it on this counter, nothing will happen," said the sheriff. "It will sit there," he added.
"But, as soon as a wicked person grabs ahold of that handgun and starts shooting people with it, there's the problem," continued Sheriff Waters. "The problem is the individual."
JACKSONVILLE SHERIFF:
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 28, 2023
“The story is ALWAYS about guns…If I could take my gun off right now…lay it on this counter, nothing will happen….
The problem is the individual!” pic.twitter.com/AzP3L9ofKt
Indeed. Firearms can be used by the "wicked" people Sheriff Waters invoked to further their wicked ways, or they can be used to save lives and stop such wicked individuals. It all depends on who is using the firearm and, in a reality Democrats deny, wicked people don't care whether their firearms are legal. That's why law-abiding firearm owners are a necessary check on and deterrent against a "wicked person" and any weapon they may wield: a firearm, a knife, a brick, their fists, a car, etc.
According to the Heritage Foundation's Defensive Gun Use Tracker, "good guys with guns" have used firearms to defend "their liberties, lives, or livelihoods with the lawful use of a firearm" in 496 incidents so far in 2023 based on verifiable reports, but that only tells part of the story.
As Heritage explains, the CDC has found that "every major study on defensive gun use has found that Americans use their firearms defensively between 500,000 and 3 million times each year" and there is "good reason to believe that most defensive gun uses are never reported to law enforcement, much less picked up by local or national media outlets."
The use of firearms in the incidents logged in the Defensive Gun Use Tracker show that firearms are not inherently bad, as Sheriff Waters argued.