Breitbart News’s AWR Hawkins received the Journalist of the Year award Saturday at the Second Amendment Foundation’s 40th annual Gun Rights Policy Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Hawkins has written over 17,400 articles during his 15+ years at Breitbart News and says he wakes up every day eager to report on the Second Amendment and use that reporting to remind Americans the importance of an armed citizenry.

AWR Hawkins at the Second Amendment Foundation’s 40th annual Gun Rights Policy Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Saturday, September 27, 2025. (Breitbart News)

Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow commented on Hawkins receiving the Journalist of the Year award over the weekend, saying, “AWR Hawkins sets the standard on gun rights and firearms reporting in this country. He’s fast, accurate, comprehensive. He can write, he can talk, he can make a viral video. It’s everything I’m looking for as an editor. Congrats to him and thanks to the Second Amendment Foundation. He’ll probably win it again next year and the year after that.

When we asked Hawkins his thoughts on receiving the award he said, “I did not see it coming.”

He continued, “When you write for a living you become used to typing words, expressing thoughts, etc., without much feedback. You never think about who might be reading an article or where they might be reading it. You write one and you move on to the next one because the narrative cannot be lost and the left cannot be given a reprieve to catch its breath or regroup. Gun rights are too important to leave to chance.”

Hawkins won Journalist of the Year previously, doing so in 2015, 2017, and 2019. He was awarded the ‘Gun Rights Defender of the Year’ in 2020, the ‘Bill of Rights‘ award in 2021, and the Second Amendment ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ in 2024.