Two men have shot and killed each other at their shared business in Lakeland, Florida, according to reports.
Citing the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, Fox News notes that Akeido Bennett, 31, and Xavier Figueroa, 39, business partners, got into a dispute that escalated to a gunfight Thursday.
The sheriff’s office didn’t share the name of the business, but Fox News reports it as Service On Site of Central Florida, Inc.
It’s not immediately clear what was behind the dispute.
Bennett reportedly died at the scene. Figueroa attempted to get out of the area in his truck but died from his wound.
“This was an avoidable tragedy stemming from a disagreement between business partners,” said Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd according to Fox News.
“We all have an obligation to our friends, our families, and society at large to talk things out instead of turning to violence. These men would still be alive today, and their families would not be grieving, had they been able to work out their differences civilly.”
It’s a tragically open secret that violent crime is a major problem in the United States.
Republican and Democrat leaders attack each other constantly on their respective beliefs on what causes it and what to do about it.
Is America going in the right direction?
Yes: 0% (0 Votes)
No: 100% (17 Votes)
Among other things, for a commanding portion of Democrats, the problem is guns. Democrats typically contend that Americans would be happier and healthier without them.
“The idea … we still allow semi-automatic weapons to be purchased is sick,” President Joe Biden said recently according to The Hill.
“It’s just sick. It has no, no social redeeming value. Zero. None. Not a single, solitary rationale for it except profit for the gun manufacturers.”
Semi-automatic firearms, for those who may be unaware, are firearms that are capable of discharging a round once per trigger pull without the additional operation of something like a bolt or a lever.
Those firearms are self-loading, outside the initial insertion of a magazine into a magazine well or rounds into an internal magazine.
They’re not machine guns. They’re also almost certainly the vast majority of what you’ll see at any handgun counter in a gun store in the United States.
In fact, they’re what most consider to be standard in the handgun industry, and a semiautomatic shotgun or rifle would hardly be considered unusual, either.
Opposing that Democrat viewpoint are studies, like this recent one, which shows the firmly blue city of Chicago to be multiple times more dangerous than an Afghan combat zone.
Meanwhile, gun ownership has grown six times over in Brazil in the past four years and the murder rate has fallen.
Ultimately, it does appear that irresponsible gun use, not gun ownership, is the real culprit in most fatal shootings in America.
Bennett and Figueroa are a tragic reminder of that sobering fact.
