The state of California has some of the toughest gun control laws anywhere in the United States. If someone passes a tougher law anywhere else, it’s generally only a matter of time before California passes a similar law so as to retain its title.

These are measures that lawmakers elsewhere claim we need to prevent violence. We’re constantly assured that if we pass such laws, we’ll see an end to all kinds of shootings.

However, several mass shootings in two days rocked the state in rapid succession. It makes one question whether or not those measures are working.

Then we’ve got another set of high-profile shootings.

California man Jaime Tran was charged on two counts of hate crimes Friday, with authorities alleging Mr. Tran shot two Jewish men in two separate incidents.

The two incidents took place outside two separate synagogues in Los Angeles’ Pico-Robertson district.

Mr. Tran is accused of shooting the first victim in the lower back at close range as he left religious services at around 9:45 a.m. Wednesday.

On Thursday at around 8 a.m., authorities allege Mr. Tran struck again, shooting the second victim at close range as he left services, wounding him in the upper arm.

Both victims survived the shootings.

“They didn’t stop them to get their wallet, there was no struggle, the guy just came out of the bushes, shot my friend and ran away. What other reasoning could you have?,” neighborhood resident Vivian Eisenstadt told KABC-TV, a Los Angeles ABC affiliate.

In a Mirandized interview, Mr. Tran told investigators that he had searched for a kosher market on Yelp, and knew his victims were Jewish based on their “head gear,” according to an affidavit from FBI Special Agent Cody Bescript.

Mr. Tran in the interview admitted to both shootings.

Now, let’s be clear, there’s no room for this kind of thing anywhere in this nation. While people have a right to believe whatever warped thing they want to believe, that doesn’t mean they can just up and shoot people because they’re Jewish.

We’re supposed to be past this nonsense.

Clearly, we’re not.

Yet California’s strict gun control laws are the ones supposedly best equipped to prevent this kind of awful situation, and yet, here we are.

They didn’t.

That’s because gun control doesn’t actually work.

“But California has lower crime than pro-gun states like Mississippi or Louisiana!”

Sure. It also has a higher median household income. Economics has long been known to play a factor in crime, so it’s far more likely that higher wages have a bigger impact on crime than any gun control.

What we see in this case is an example of how California isn’t nearly as advanced as many would like to claim. It’s not on them, really, except that state law made it virtually impossible for either victim to be able to defend themselves in this situation.

Just think, this would be just another armed citizen story were it not for the anti-gun regulations permeating California’s legal code.

Alas, it wasn’t.

The good news here is that the bad guy couldn’t shoot worth a damn and the innocent victims will fully recover while the suspect gets to deal with the consequences of his alleged actions.