After the arrests of two juveniles, one of whom is only 12 years old, in connection with the recent killings of three teenagers in Florida, the sheriff of Marion County, Billy Woods reportedly took to social media on Friday to criticize “society,” “school districts,” and the rhetoric surrounding gun control.
Woods made his comments after announcing the arrests of the juveniles for murder.
At the news conference, Woods stated that the office of the attorney general is now considering whether or not to charge all three suspects as adults despite the fact that a third juvenile suspect is still at large.
Layla Silvernail, 16, Camille Quarles, also 16, and an unidentified male victim, age 17, were all shot to death on or around March 30 in a remote area of Marion County, and the suspects are suspected of carrying out the shootings.
Woods said to the reporters that he was required to “look into the eyes” of the suspects’ moms and tell them their sons had committed crimes.
The sheriff also voiced his disapproval toward members of the media and other individuals who pointed the finger of blame at firearms following a shooting.
“There are individuals out there viewing … who want to blame the one thing that has no ability or the capacity to commit the crime itself, and that’s the gun. These individuals committed the crime.” Woods said.
Woods continued: “[t]he bad guy’s going to get a gun no matter what laws you put in place.”
After 3 teens murdered 3 other teens with a stolen gun, this is what Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods had to say to a reporter about gun control being a failure. Bravo!
pic.twitter.com/XO91PyM39v— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) April 7, 2023
Woods then claimed that society and schools shared a significant amount of blame for the fact that juveniles were not held accountable for their misdeeds.
According to Woods, the suspects in the triple killing were involved in a burglary and robbery ring and obtained their guns from automobiles. These crimes occurred before the murders.
According to the sheriff, the suspects and the deceased were all present in the car driven by Silvernail at the time of the victims’ deaths. According to the authorities, all three victims appear to have been shot at the same moment.
Quarles, who was 16 years old at the time, was found dead from a gunshot wound in Silvernail’s vehicle after the authorities obtained a search warrant and conducted a search of the vehicle.
Woods stated that the individuals who were caught admitted to shooting Quarles while she was in the vehicle.
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That sheriff, & many of his pees taking like positions, are correct. It’s not the gun that’s the issue: it’s the HUMAN user that is, & must be dealt with appropriately. That does NOT include a team of psychiatric staff alone to decide a person is safe to unleash on society, unsupervised, after an extreme violence episode. Rather, laws must require a sufficient time in an halfway house with both law enforcement & psychiatric supervision, long enough to be sure the individual was not just “playing the game” at which even young psych patients become adept, quickly! A 2nd such event must result in permanent restriction to only supervised outings, because that person has demonstrated inability to live freely in civilized society. NAMI, unfortunately, was not selective enough in pushing for rights protections for the mentally ill back in the ’80s & ’90s. Granted, most aren’t threats most of the time, but sociopaths & psychopaths ARE threats, most of the time, to others. Granted also, Yhwh God gave those persons free will to choose how they will behave. The problem is that those persons know full well what they’re doing is “wrong”, but they simply do not CARE! It’s that ack of conscience & empathy that makes them too dangerous to leave free in civil society. But there will also need to be safeguards to insure those laws are NOT misapplied to political “enemies” by those in power; multiple people from different disciplines, involved in the decisions to activate that type of strict lifetime supervision, including law enforcement, psychiatric, & judicial, at least, as a panel.
If we continue to ignore the real root of the problem, we will continue to experience unnecessary & senseless violence & death. The TOOL, be it a gun, knife, chain saw, brick, car, or even fist, is immaterial.
Well I remember a statement in an official setting by a man from Korea who apologized that English was not his first language. But he went on to say that killing of innocents is not the fault of guns. Such killings, he advised, are the result of the decay of society and the resulting decline of conscience and morality. Impounding and seizure of all firearms will result in the triumph of the ruthless totalitarian state, wherein only the State and criminals will own guns.