I truly believe that part of the reason so much of the gun debate is so frustrating is that we’re faced with opponents who sound outright crazy. While they call us “gun nuts,” they continue to ignore reality in the wake of events like Parkland or Sutherland Springs. They keep screaming for new laws, new regulations, all in a misguided and mistaken belief that the problem is merely that of insufficient regulation.

However, as RedState‘s Joe Cunningham notes, there’s more going on.

Every aspect of the system we currently have in place in Florida completely fell apart in the case of Nickolas Cruz. From the FBI all the way down to local law enforcement, the school system, and even child and family services, Cruz is a prime example of someone who fell through the cracks.

How does that even happen? How does every possible agency get it so wrong? How do the people who work for the government that is supposed to protect us from such things even allow this to happen? For God’s sake, the school’s own resource officer didn’t even enter the school while the Parkland Shooting was going on.

When so many people sit on their thumbs instead of doing their job, and children are massacred, it’s time to take a good, long look at the system we’ve built to stop these situations.

It seems ridiculous to me that we would entrust the successful defense of new laws to people who clearly cannot enforce the ones we already have. The same people who say that all cops are corrupt racists who murder blacks, adults and children alike, are the same ones now calling for increased law enforcement in our schools and making sure they are the only people anywhere who have guns.

It’s not logical. It’s an entirely emotional argument that hinges on the belief that if we just have more laws and more government, then we could really solve our problems.

Cunningham is right.

But his observation is also why gun control advocates sound outright insane to so many of us. The very people they vehemently distrust – the government they accuse of being “literally Hitler,” and law enforcement – are the only people they want to have firearms.

How does that make sense?

Couple that with their pie in the sky ideas that somehow another law will suddenly make it impossible for mass shootings to happen, and it’s not hard to see why it’s impossible to take them seriously. They’re not interested in listening to alternatives. They’re not interested in open, honest debate. They simply want to push new regulations into existence.

Meanwhile, the rules we do have simply aren’t working. The Sutherland Springs shooter should never have been able to purchased his guns, but the NICS was flawed. And the FBI had ample warning about the Parkland shooter, but didn’t follow the proper protocol. In both cases, the system failed us.

If any positive change is going to happen, we needs to start with reforming our current system and enforcing existing laws, not enacting new ones that only hurt law-abiding citizens who have done nothing wrong.