A Buffalo Gap High School student died in a Feb. 18 shooting on Maple Leaf Drive in Augusta County that the county sheriff, Donald Smith, said, per a news release, was “an isolated incident involving the illegal sale of handguns.”
Is there actually such a thing as “the illegal sale of handguns” in Augusta County now, though?
***
Smith declared on Tuesday that the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office will not be enforcing gun laws that went into effect on July 1 banning the sale, purchase, manufacturing and transfer of assault weapons, requiring background checks for the private sale of firearms, and cracking down on untraceable ghost guns to make sure officers have the ability to track weapons used in crimes.
ICYMI
In effect, Smith declared the county to be open to any and all who want to traffic in the illegal transfer of guns – both locally, statewide and along the so-called “Iron Pipeline,” which gun traffickers use to get guns from states in the Southeast with lax gun laws and gun law enforcement into the Northeast corridor.
Locally, we have a high school kid with a bright future snuffed out in a case involving the “illegal sale of handguns” that our Sheriff’s Office no longer cares about.
The impact of Smith’s edict outside our borders will be hard to quantify, with the sheriff, unwittingly, making Augusta County a new tourist destination for gun traffickers, with the county’s ideal location at the confluence of two interstates – I-64, connecting us to Richmond and Hampton Roads, and I-81 connecting us to the northeast.
The sheriff’s politically motivated declaration that he is “committed to upholding the Constitution in its entirety, regardless of state law,” is an open invitation to traffickers aiming to get illegal guns to big cities in Virginia and in the Northeast to make their way to our friendly confines – there’s an easy way in and out, and while you’re here, you won’t get any scrutiny from the fuzz.
***
The “isolated incident involving the illegal sale of handguns” referenced at the top of this story took the life of Andrew “AJ” Wayne Mitts Jr., 18, of Staunton, and seriously wounded an unnamed 19-year-old.
ICYMI
Two people were announced as having been arrested in connection with the shooting – Agereon Dondell Price, 51, of Staunton, and Anthony Shamon Washington, 46, of Waynesboro – though neither is facing charges in direct connection with the shooting, per a review of online court records.
Washington is set to go before a jury in Waynesboro on Aug. 3 on gun, drug possession and probation violation charges – notably, the gun charges are for felony possession/transfer of a weapon by a violent felon.
Is that the “illegal sale of handguns” that Smith was highlighting in his public pronouncements?
I ask because, according to a family friend, Mitts, the high school student who was shot dead, was “taking out the trash when he was caught in the crossfire of a robbery and was shot five times.”
ICYMI
- Caught in the crossfire? Shooting victim was a Buffalo Gap High School senior
- Augusta County Sheriff’s Office: Two victims in shooting on Maple Leaf Drive
Innocent kid, wrong place, wrong time.
The family friend described Mitts as “a great young man, set to graduate this year, with so much promise and a bright future ahead of him.”
Sounds like AJ Mitts just got caught in the crossfire of a gun deal gone bad.
In a county where the sheriff only investigates gun deals gone bad after the fact.
The guns in gun deals gone bad have to come from somewhere, right?
Isn’t that why we have laws on the books requiring gun dealers to be federally licensed, and now this new one in Virginia, that Smith is saying he won’t enforce, requiring background checks for the private sale of firearms?
The system that we have in place isn’t perfect, obviously, but it’s better than the Wild West.
Two days after the shooting, Augusta County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Kelly Troxell released a statement saying the school division was “shocked and saddened” by Mitts’ death.
“Words are insufficient to capture how devastated the students, faculty and staff at Buffalo Gap High School are at this time,” Troxell said.
***
It’s fair to ask what the Sheriff’s Office has found related to a cryptic Dec. 19, 2025, post from Smith on the ACSO’s Facebook page in which he reported that his office was investigating Nox’s Weapons, a now-closed gun store in Fishersville.
The post asked people “who are missing or are owed firearms, ammunition, money or other property from this business” to contact an investigator.
Kinda sounds like some guns and ammunition were thought to have gone missing there, doesn’t it?
Wonder where those guns ended up?
Surely they ended up in the homes of law-abiding gun owners, who keep them safely stored in locked gun cabinets.
Eye roll.
***
It’s open season for gun traffickers here in our area now, thanks to the Augusta County sheriff, Donald Smith.
Guns & ammo stores, gun shows at Augusta Expo, the streets in front of homes of police officers – Waynesboro Police are still not saying anything about the theft of rifles from police cars that we first reported three weeks ago, for probably obvious reasons.
Criminals gotta get their guns from somewhere; our sheriff is saying, in essence, might as well be here as anywhere else.
ICYMI
Support AFP
Share
Chris Graham
