Jacksonville Sheriff Slams Leftist Anti-Gun Agenda After Tragedy
Following a racially motivated shooting that left three people dead at a Dollar General store, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters called out the left for politicizing the tragedy in an attempt to push their gun control agenda over the weekend.
The shooter has been identified as 21-year-old Ryan Palmeter, who left behind manifestos that allegedly made it clear he was specifically targeting Black people. The three individuals killed in the shooting have been identified as 52-year-old Angela Carr, 19-year-old Anolt Laguerre Jr. and 29-year-old Jerrald De’Shaun Gallion.
During a press conference about the shooting, Waters condemned the left’s attempt to politicize the tragedy.
“The story is always about guns — people are bad — this guy’s a bad guy,” the Jacksonville sheriff 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 a wicked person grabs hold of that handgun and starts shooting people with it — there’s the problem.”
“The problem is the individual,” Waters 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.”
While the shooter had previously been placed on a temporarily involuntary mental health hold under the Baker Act in 2017, he was able to legally purchase firearms.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) also spoke out following the tragedy in a video posted to X, formerly known as Twitter.
“This shooting, based on the manifesto that they’ve discovered from the scumbag that did this, was racially motivated,” DeSantis said in the video 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 added. “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.”
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has blamed the incident on the mental health epidemic in the United States — arguing during an appearance on CNN that the country should “bring back a practice” of putting dangerous mentally ill people into “psychiatric institutions.”
“This should not be happening in the United States of America, and it is wrong,” Ramaswamy stated. “The reality is, we have a mental health epidemic in this country. There are reports that this particular individual, the perpetrator, was indeed evaluated for mental health deficiencies as well.”
“And I think we need to have the courage in this country to bring back a practice of putting back psychiatrically ill people who pose a risk to their communities into psychiatric institutions, not just drugging them up, but faith-based approaches and other approaches that fill our longing for purpose and meaning in this country,” he continued, adding, “We have to address that mental health epidemic, and we need leaders with the courage to do it.”
