Democrats are odd creatures. In my experience, they get bent out of shape when you talk about how their party wants a gun ban of any sort. Then, you get candidates like Scott Wallace in Pennsylvania.

This Democrat very openly wants a ban on certain guns, and he even says so.

A Pennsylvania Democratic House candidate in the PA-1 district—formerly PA-8—advocated for new gun-control laws in a new ad and fundraising email sent on Tuesday.

Scott Wallace, the leading candidate in the Democratic primary, released an ad titled “Gun Reform” this week that called for a ban on certain rifles and ammunition magazines as well as banning private sales of used guns unless they’re conducted through a licensed gun dealer. In the ad, Wallace slams prayers and condolences offered in the wake of shootings as well as President Trump’s proposal to allow teachers to carry firearms in school.

“Prayers and condolences don’t mean a thing if we don’t take action to protect our kids,” Wallace said in the ad. “Donald Trump’s idea to arm teachers is idiotic. We must ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines and stop guns from getting into the hands of the mentally ill.”

Wallace specifically singled out the AR-15, the most popular rifle in the United States with tens of millions in civilian hands, as being used to “slaughter our kids.” He incorrectly labels the semiautomatic-only AR-15 rifle as an assault rifle even though the Defense Intelligence Agency classifies assault rifles as being capable of fully automatic fire.

Wallace, who was accused of violating federal campaign finance law in another ad, sent a fundraising email in connection with the new gun-control ad. In the email he accused Trump, the National Rifle Association, and his Republican opponent Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of caring more about the “gun lobby” than kids.

“Donald Trump, Brian Fitzpatrick, and their friends at the NRA won’t like the new television ad we’re putting on the airwaves, but I don’t care if it pisses them off,” Wallace said in the email. “We need leaders with a backbone who will stand up to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and who will stop guns from getting into the hands of people with mental illness by requiring universal background checks. If you’re angry at the politicians in Washington, D.C., who protect the gun lobby instead of our kids, then I urge you to watch this video and share it with your friends to spread the word about our campaign.”

Of course, Wallace, like most gun grabbers, fails to understand that the killers in Parkland, Sutherland Springs, and Las Vegas all passed background checks, so universal background checks wouldn’t have stopped any of these three killers.

Further, the Parkland shooter apparently had 10-round magazines, and it didn’t slow him down one bit.

But Wallace doesn’t need reality. He just needs to be seen as someone “doing something.” You see “doing something” means you’re making moves that look like you’re countering a perceived problem without really giving a damn about the problem in the first place. Actually doing something would require a lot of time, energy, and sweat because real answers are rarely simple.

Wallace doesn’t want to put in that kind of work. Most gun grabbers don’t.

They’ll play with their faux outrage to score political points, but where are the efforts to combat not just the next Parkland, but the next Toronto? No gun was needed there, and people were still killed. What about the next family murder in South Carolina where a dumbbell was used?

None of those used a gun, so people like Wallace don’t really give a damn. That’s why I know, despite his pontification, he’s blowing nothing but hot air. If he were really serious about ending these kinds of things, he’d be talking about these other killings as well, about what we can do to prevent those deaths.

But he’s not. That’s because these aren’t as politically palatable as an assault weapon ban, and that’s all that matters to anti-gun candidates. They don’t care if they’re right, just so long as they’re popular.