When someone is paroled from prison, the expectation is that they’ll start to walk the straight and narrow path. Based on recidivism rates, few actually do, but that’s the goal.

However, there are limits to what felons can do in the real world. For example, they can’t buy guns.

Yet in New York, a parolee illustrated just how futile it is to try and prevent that.

Police shot and killed a parolee who was waving a gun around during a fight in upper Manhattan Sunday morning.

Uniformed police officers were at Nagle Avenue and Dyckman Street in Inwood around 3 a.m. when they saw the armed 29-year-old, who was out on parole for drugs, involved in a fight and ordered him to drop the weapon, NYPD Chief of Patrol Jeffrey Maddrey said.

“They observe a dispute,” Maddrey said. “As they get closer to the dispute, they observe a male with a gun in his hand fighting in the crowd. The officers exit their vehicle and give commands for the person to drop the firearm.”

Long story short, he didn’t and so the NYPD shot and killed him.

Yet here’s the thing that stuck out to me. It’s not that he was a parolee in and of itself. Some step up and start acting right after a stint in prison while many others don’t. Those failures don’t necessarily negate parole as an instrument for the correctional system.

No, what got me is that this is a parolee–a felon–who was able to obtain a firearm in New York City, the most gun-controlled city in the nation, even after the Bruen decision.

If gun control works, he shouldn’t have been able to get a gun. The police would have shown up and seen nothing more than a couple of guys arguing. That’s it. That doesn’t result in anyone getting shot and killed.

Yet those laws clearly failed here. They failed while many law-abiding New Yorkers are getting jerked around by the state and the city as they try to play games with the Bruen decision.

That’s because those inclined to commit crimes–including parolees who aren’t actually reformed–will find a way to arm themselves if they have the cash and the desire to do so. They’re terribly creative that way.

It’s beyond time to recognize who gun control really controls. It’s not about stopping crime or anything of the sort, even if many believe that it is.

No, what we’re looking at here is a prime example of how gun control only controls the law-abiding. Those who would break the law won’t blink and break still more laws. They’ll keep handguns and “assault weapons” and other such things long after others would give them up. Why wouldn’t they? Having guns when no one else has one makes you even more dangerous.

That’s a big win for them.

Unfortunately, few in New York seem remotely interested in addressing this. They’d rather stick their heads in the sand and pretend gun control is the answer to all their problems.

In the meantime, they’ll keep seeing stuff like this happen because laws don’t stop behavior. They simply punish the behavior afterward in hopes of deterring others from breaking them, and that’s clearly failed.