Miami Police Chief: You Either Support Police or Think ‘Everybody Should Have a Firearm’

Miami Police Chief Art Acevedo reacted to Sunday’s targeted attack on rapper ABMG Spitta’s album release party by calling for universal background checks.

Breitbart News reported that two people were killed and over 20 injured when three individuals got out of a Nissan Pathfinder and opened fire on a crowd outside a Miami banquet hall Sunday morning. The incident occurred around 12:3o a.m.

Acevedo told CBS’s Face the Nation, “It’s just an indication of the problem we have with the scourge of gun violence in this country, that we have to do much more at the federal level to stop.”

He later added, “We need to have universal background checks. We need to make burglarizing these licensed gun stores a federal crime with mandatory sentencing. We need the federal government and both sides to address these issues.”

Acevedo did not point out that California has had universal background checks since the early 1990s, yet they regularly have high profile, firearm-based attacks in their state.

Here are just a few examples:

• ABC 7 reported that “seven people were killed and three were wounded when a 43-year-old former student opened fire at Oikos University in Oakland, California,” on April 2, 2012.
• Twenty-two-year-old Elliot Roger “killed six people and wounded 13 in shooting and stabbing attacks in the area near the University of California, Santa Barbara,” on May 23, 2014.
• Breitbart News highlighted that Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik opened fire in a San Bernardino, California, Health Department Christmas party on December 2, 2015, killing 14 people.
• The Associated Press wrote that 39-year-old Kori Ali Muhammad shot and killed three people in downtown Fresno, California, on April 18, 2017.
• ABC 7 noted that 38-year-old Jimmy Lam “opened fire inside a San Francisco package facility, killing three people and injuring several others” on June 14, 2017.
• Twelve people were killed when a gunman opened fire inside the Borderline Bar & Grill, in Thousand Oaks, California, on November 7, 2018.
• Breitbart News covered a shooting that left three killed and 12 injured on July 28, 2019, at the Gilroy, California, Garlic Festival.
• The New York Times reported an October 31, 2019, shooting that left five dead in Orinda, California.
• On November 18, 2019, the Guardian ran a column titled “Ten Dead After California Sees Three Mass Shootings in Four Days.” Those shootings included the Santa Clarita shooting at Saugus High School and the killing of four individuals during a “family party” in Fresno.
• KTLA reported that a child was among four people killed when a gunman opened fire at a business park in Orange, California. The New York Times noted the child was a nine-year-old boy.
• On May 26, 2021, a Valley Transportation Authority maintenance worker used handguns to kill eight innocents.

After making the gun control push, Acevedo said: “You’re either with law enforcement or you stand with the fringe and believe that everybody should have a firearm, regardless of their character, capabilities, and mental capacity.”

Acevedo came to Miami from Houston, where he regularly pushed for more gun control as well.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.