Law enforcement is a dangerous occupation, but it shouldn’t be. There shouldn’t be a risk to police officers for simply enforcing laws on the books. Unfortunately, reality is a thing, which means there will be danger.

People want to mitigate that risk. Good for them.

However, when we talk about reality, we should also talk about acknowledging it while protestors call for trying to mitigate that risk. That clearly didn’t happen here.

Marvis Cofield is afraid. He wants to set an example for his nephew and two grandchildren.

So he took them to a protest against gun violence in metro Detroit.

“They needed to see for themselves, hear the names of the people and families who have been impacted,” Cofield said at the protest outside Eastpointe’s Action Impact gun shop on Tuesday.

It’s where authorities allege Sheldon Thomas, 26, purchased a 7.62-caliber Draco pistol last month and illegally sold it to 19-year-old Ehmani Davis for a profit of $50 outside a White Castle.

Davis is accused of shooting and killing Detroit police officer Loren Courts on July 6 with that Draco, a semi-automatic pistol similar to an AK-style rifle but cut shorter, according to the gun shop owner.

Davis was then fatally shot by other Detroit police officers.

“I’m tired of seeing our kids in the ground,” said Cofield, 59, of Detroit.

His nephew, Floyd Shepherd, 14, of Detroit, said gun violence wreaking havoc among area youth has made him paranoid. Cofield’s grandchildren, Germany Brown, 13, and Frank Stovall, 12, said they both would like to see more responsible gun laws and have felt traumatized by gun violence in their communities.

…

The shooting has sparked public outcry.

Um…these guys do recognize that the bad guy got the gun through an illegal gun sale? In other words, the laws were already being broken.

Why should we be passing more gun control laws when the ones already on the books don’t seem to be helping?

Look, dead police officers aren’t something we should make light of. Good cops trying to do good work deserve our respect, and officers gunned down in the line of duty should be mourned.

But to try and use such a murder as a point of leverage to demand things like restrictions on gun rights requires us to ignore reality.

Protestors can call for new laws, but it doesn’t change the fact that the laws on the books were broken. If new laws are created, will they stop the next such shooting? No, it’ll just create more laws to be broken before the shooting can happen.

At some point, we have to recognize that the issue isn’t the guns–not the type of gun, not the availability of guns, any of that–but that we have defective people who don’t value human life. That’s the reality we’re dealing with, but our protestors making demands don’t want to talk about any of that.

Because they won’t, though, they won’t actually accomplish any of what they say they want to accomplish. Funny how that works out, isn’t it?