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A gun shop owner in Georgia has actually decided to close down business, claiming he does not want to be held responsible for children dying in a mass shooting.
In March 2021, Jon Waldman established Georgia Ballistics in Duluth with the intention of starting a line of work that would withstand the pandemic. However, as gun sales rose across the nation, Waldman noticed that the number of children impacted by mass shootings also rose dramatically.
Waldman told 11Alive, “I do not want something that I personally handled, that I helped a customer with, to be used on kids. What prevents this [gun] from being used on my child? That’s the problem, even if they pass a background check, you never really understand how they got it.
Despite the fact that his company was unaffected by the pandemic, Waldman began to be troubled by the sheer number of children dying in shootings.
According to a Pew Research Centre survey, the number of child fatalities from weapons in the US climbed by 50% in the previous two years.
According to a Washington Post database, 2015 was also the most violent year for shootings in schools, with 46 documented incidents—the highest since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999.
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Although Waldman agrees that people should be able to own weapons, he claims he can no longer sell them.
I simply can’t provide people stuff like this, he said. “I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have any equipment. I’m merely suggesting that I am unable to provide something that could be useful.
Waldman claimed that a customer had recently purchased a firearm and 4,000 rounds of armor-piercing 30-06 bullets. Because this was a significant purchase, Waldman decided to rescind the sale and give the buyer a refund.
He said, “This is just my conscience. It’s more important to me than anything else, she continued.