Florida is an interesting state. On one hand, it’s a great vacation destination, with sandy beaches and Disneyworld as well as cities with an exotic feel like Miami. However, the state has also had its issues considering it was once the gateway to the US for the drug trade. South Florida had an impressive body count for a while there.

While some things have definitely gotten better, there’s still a long way to go and many people in the state think gun control is the answer.

Yet a recent shooting near Orlando really should put that argument to bed.

An 18-year-old is accused of giving a gun to a 16-year-old and letting him use it to shoot at another vehicle on an interstate, Florida court documents say.

The 18-year-old was driving a Honda Pilot on Interstate 95 in Palm Bay just before 3 p.m. on Dec. 26, when his 16-year-old passenger rolled down the window and shot at another vehicle using a Glock 43X, according to an arrest report from the Florida Highway Patrol. A Glock 43x is a 9mm semiautomatic pistol.

The driver of the second vehicle later told investigators that he saw the Honda Pilot traveling at a high rate of speed and cutting in and out of traffic before beginning to follow his vehicle closely, the report says.

…

Troopers with Florida Highway Patrol pulled the Honda Pilot over and arrested the 18-year-old driver, the report says. He told troopers that he knew the passenger in his car was a minor and that the gun used in the shooting was the driver’s.

The 18-year-old is facing a number of charges, including giving the gun to a minor.

However, there’s something that didn’t get mentioned by the Miami Herald, and that’s how an 18-year-old can’t lawfully buy a Glock 43X.

After all, that’s a handgun. Federal law prohibits the sale of such a firearm to anyone under the age of 21. As such, gun control should have prevented this entire incident from happening.

Unsurprisingly, it didn’t.

That’s because the kind of person who would hand a gun to a 16-year-old and tell them to shoot at another car is probably the kind of person who isn’t going to trip over himself to obey firearm laws in the first place.

Florida, despite having a pro-gun reputation, isn’t nearly so open to gun ownership that they’re nullifying federal law. Hell, they don’t even let 18-year-olds lawfully buy long guns anymore, much less handguns, so we can’t chalk this up to too few laws on the books.

No, this is nothing but a case of criminals being criminals and bypassing the rules that prevent law-abiding citizens from being able to defend themselves.

Right now, there are people in Florida prohibited from buying a gun because of those laws, fearful that the next homicide in their communities will be them and they’re powerless to defend themselves from it, while we have this guy walking around with a handgun.

I’m sorry, but I don’t see how anyone can look at these failures and not recognize that gun control isn’t the answer.