A Florida sheriff doubled down on comments backing a homeowner who used an AK-47-style semi-automatic rifle to protect himself during a Fox News appearance early Thursday morning.
“If protecting your family and yourself is wrong, then I don’t know what we’re here for,” Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons told “Fox and Friends First” co-host Todd Piro. “I can tell you, it looks like the three trying to get into his house trying to convince them that they know him. You can tell they have something up. Two of them enter, you can see, the third one stays outside as you’re watching the video and he pulls a gun. He is on surveillance, I guess, and he tried to go in himself.” (RELATED: Man Decides To Exercise His Second Amendment Rights While Another Man Goes On Violent Rampage In Neighborhood)
“The homeowner retrieves a second gun because he lost his first gun,” Simmons continued. “He did absolutely nothing wrong.”
After trying to use a handgun to protect himself from three men who allegedly tried to force their way into the house July 7, the homeowner retrieved an AK-47-style rifle and fired multiple shots, forcing the suspects to flee, according to a Facebook post by the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office. Police issued warrants for the arrest for two of the suspects and are seeking a third.
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Simmons announced the homeowner would not face charges for firing at the three intruders Wednesday. Simmons also defended the homeowner’s decision to use a semi-automatic rifle.
“You have to use it — use whatever reasonable means you have available to you,” Simmons told Piro. “In this case, he had a weapon in the scuffle, he lost that weapon, so he went to retrieve another weapon …. His life was obviously in danger.”
“They had already picked up his weapon, so there was two handguns and I think that the attempt to get the AK-47-style weapon was a reasonable one,” Simmons said.
President Joe Biden has called for banning what he called “assault weapons” in the wake of mass shootings in Uvalde, Buffalo and Tulsa.
The Escambia Country Sheriff’s Office and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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