No matter the state, gun control supporters are going to try to be a pain in the backside and try to make everything about gun control they can. In many states, they don’t really accomplish much. They look good for the gun grabbers back home and maybe get an attaboy from a state-level gun control group that didn’t really expect to accomplish anything anyway.

Yet it’s hilarious when they try something and it gets hijacked and turned into something else.

Kind of like what happened in South Dakota recently.

A proposal brought by a South Dakota Democrat asking the Legislature to acknowledge the issue of gun deaths in the state was transformed by Senate Republicans on Tuesday to highlight reductions in accidental gun deaths.

Sen. Reynold Nesiba, a Sioux Falls Democrat, said he brought the resolution to “start a conversation” about deaths from guns in the state, but he found the conservative-dominated Senate a tough audience. The South Dakota Legislature has often moved in recent years to protect and expand gun rights.

Instead of passing Nesiba’s resolution that pointed out that the majority of suicides in the state involve guns and outnumber deaths from opioids, the Senate rewrote his proposal to point out statistics underscored by the National Rifle Association on dramatic reductions in accidental firearm deaths. The resolution called for gun owners to safely handle and store firearms.

Nesiba was less than thrilled about what happened to his proposal, but I’m tickled to death.

Look, suicide is a problem, but Nesiba sought to use suicides to push for regulation on the means of suicide. That doesn’t work. At best, people shift to other methods and kill themselves that way. In the end, it doesn’t stop suicides at all.

Meanwhile, safely handling and securing your weapons is just smart. It’s how you prevent your guns from being stolen or otherwise ending up in the wrong hands, even from a family member. A secured gun is less likely to be used for something you’ll have to ask yourself questions about later.

But this isn’t about suicides or securing firearms. This is about an anti-gunner wanting to try to find the way in under the pro-gun armor of his fellow lawmakers. The original proposal included language that might have looked to some as if it gave support to the Second Amendment, but how often do we hear, “I support the Second Amendment but…” anyway?

Nesiba’s goal wasn’t to address what he sees as an issue. His goal was to use this as a wedge. He could tell otherwise pro-gun lawmakers that his next bit of gun control legislation wasn’t that different from the resolution they backed, which may push some into backing it. It’s a pathetic attempt at manipulation and anyone with a brain can see it.

And they did.

Now, the resolution actually contributes something meaningful to the conversation. It takes a position that can and should be fairly universal across the board, all without pressuring anyone into backing any new regulations.

The fact that they did it by hijacking an anti-gunners resolution is just icing on the cake.