In the horrific triple shooting of three teenagers with alleged gang affiliations, many naturally turned their aim towards the weapon used instead of the suspects who were arrested for the crime.
Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods had none of that nonsense. “There are individuals out there viewing, and [that] includes some of you in the media, that want to blame the one thing that has no ability or the capacity to commit the crime itself, and that’s the gun,” he told a press conference. “These individuals committed the crime.”
Woods then took aim at the inevitable calls for even more gun control that follow any tragedy.
“All the gun laws we got in place didn’t prevent it, did it? Neither will any new ones. Because here’s the fact: The bad guy is going to get a gun no matter what law you put into place.”
During the interview, a media member asked how the minor suspects acquired the weapon. Woods responded, “car burglaries.”
In a classic case of saying the silent part out loud, NBC News described Woods’ comments as a “wild rant.” The sheriff did not raise his voice, pound the podium, or do anything other than speak the truth about who was responsible for the triple slaying.
But that’s all it took for the establishment media to smear a law enforcement officer over stating the obvious.
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) came to Sheriff Woods’ defense, saying he was “absolutely right” in telling journalists that the gun was not responsible.
CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb called it “deplorable” that NBC labeled his statement a “wild rant” against gun control. The choice of wording was an obvious attempt to shift the narrative towards a supposedly unhinged law enforcement official and away from the truth in his words.
“The sheriff is a career lawman,” Gottlieb observed, “and he’s got more than enough experience to make the distinction between an inanimate object and an individual with an evil heart. If anyone is guilty of going off on a rant, it’s NBC News.”
He continued, noting that some in the media “can’t stand the truth.”
“When they quoted Sheriff Woods, some reports deliberately omitted his reference to the media among those wanting to blame the gun. The sheriff got it right, and the establishment media knows it.”
Even worse, Woods committed the grave error of stressing personal accountability.
“Our school districts, not just here…school districts across this state and across this nation need to quit minimizing the actions of their students. Hold them accountable,” he said. “That’s where the failure is.”
The press conference came over a week after the first victim, 16-year-old Layla Silvernail, was discovered on March 30 bleeding from a gunshot wound beside a road.
The next day, a 17-year-old male was found dead from a gunshot beside a road a few miles from where Silvernail was located. Police then found a third victim, a 16-year-old girl, dead in the trunk of Silvernail’s partially submerged vehicle on the edge of a body of water. She had also been shot.
Woods told reporters that the three teen victims and the suspects, one of whom is 12 years old, knew each other and were involved with burglaries and robberies. He said they all were gang affiliated.
“We have nothing specific to say that it was any rivalry…But, however, each and every one of them in some shape or form is associated with a gang.”
NBC News knew very well that Sheriff Woods did not go on a “wild rant.” Rather, he calmly explained the truth about gun control to an unwilling audience, and for that he had to be smeared.
