A 43-year-old gun shop owner in Georgia is shutting down his store, saying he can no longer sell weapons in good conscience. He says both the Nashville elementary school mass shooting in March and the Atlanta hospital mass shooting in May were the "final straws."
And after someone came into his gun shop six weeks ago wanting to buy 4,000 rounds, he told NBC News he knew he was making the right decision. "I just can't," he said.
"I'm not against the second amendment. But just with my conscience, I can't sell it, because I don't know who it's going to affect and hurt," Jon Waldman, who opened his shop near Atlanta in 2021, said. "That's what eats at me … If it can happen, it's only a matter of time until it does happen."
Although Waldman said he doesn't feel guilty — he only sells to "law-abiding citizens" — he said he doesn't have control over where those guns end up, and "that's what eats at me."
From NBC:
He said he reached the point of worrying that any weapon he sells, even to someone who will never commit a crime, could end up in the wrong hands. …
Two recent shootings led Waldman to his decision, he said.
A former student of The Covenant School in Nashville killed three children and three adults at the campus on March 27, officials said. Police shot and killed the shooter.
"That really affected me," Waldman said. "And then the shooting at Midtown [Atlanta] — this just has to stop. Dude killed a woman from the CDC who only wanted to help others. So I just can't. That was the final straws." …
Waldman insisted he's not pushing for greater restrictions on firearm ownership but is only advocating for more gun safety. …
"For the last couple of months, you just see kids, over and over again, getting shot," Waldman said. "It's kids being randomly shot, and I'm tired of it. I have a kid. My girlfriend has two kids. I'm a family man. I'm all about people being armed, but at the same time, they leave their stuff in their cars. They don't see their firearms [to be as important] as their phones."
