AP Photo/Peter Dejong

Once again, gun control is in the minds of Americans. What else can we expect after 49 people were gunned down in their houses of worship? It doesn’t matter too much where it was, it’s a horrific event that could easily have happened here. There’s a reason we’re talking about it.

Invariably, there are those who will seize onto an event like this as a golden opportunity to advance their radical agenda.

However, as the Second Amendment Foundation’s Alan Gottlieb points out, gun control laws don’t stop maniacs.

Gun control proponents argue that America could “learn something” from the horrendous attack on two New Zealand mosques.

They are hoping that our citizens, gripped by emotion, will overlook the obvious and agree that law-abiding gun owners should face additional restrictions on their rights.

The real lesson to be learned from the Christchurch massacre is that madmen aren’t deterred by gun control laws, or laws against murder. Morality doesn’t enter into their thinking, so honest people must be prepared for the unthinkable and be able to respond.

The gun prohibition lobby hopes to capitalize on a terror attack half a world away in an effort to advance its agenda. Forget, for a moment, that the Second Amendment stands in their way. Focus on the irrational notion that somehow a defenseless victim is morally superior to an armed private citizen who can fight back and save lives.

When two armed citizens stopped a mass shooting at an Oklahoma City restaurant, and when an armed citizen stopped a gunman from entering a crowded Colorado Springs church, the gun prohibition lobby was silent.

The New Zealand suspect acquired his guns legally, same as virtually all the killers in recent mass shootings here. Millions of law-abiding American gun owners should not be penalized because of murderers’ misdeeds.

I agree completely.

The truth is that while anti-gunners often claim that no armed citizen has stopped a mass shooting, that’s only because they fail to account for one simple fact. When an armed citizen is present, it doesn’t rack up a body count high enough to qualify as a mass shooting by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s definition. Armed citizens don’t stop them. They prevent mass shootings from ever being mass shootings in the first place.

When they do that, anti-gunners pretend the event didn’t happen.

It’s kind of like how they use the total number of gun deaths–including suicides–to justify the need for gun control, but completely ignore the 2.5 million people who defend themselves with a firearm every year.

More gun laws won’t stop bad people from doing bad things. It’s time we take a step back and start looking at the bigger picture. Let’s start looking at just how these diseased minds work so maybe we can prevent this kind of person from even wanting to slaughter dozens of people. Let’s be proactive for once, and not by punishing the innocent.

A radical idea, I know, but one that might work for a change.