From time to time, I’ve likened gun control to insanity, using the popular definition of “doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.”

After all, every time gun control fails, proponents call for still more gun control. It’s kind of hard not to look at it as being a little crazy.

That’s not just for American anti-gunners, either.

In England, a group that formed in the aftermath of Dunblane is now using another mass shooting–one that suggests the strict regulations didn’t work worth a damn–to do it all over again.

A gun control pressure group, set up in the wake of the Dunblane massacre, has said the nation is at “another crossroads” following the Keyham shooting. The Gun Control Network was established as a small non-profit making organisation in July 1996 in the aftermath of the Dunblane tragedy. The founders included lawyers, academics and the parents of victims killed in Dunblane and Hungerford. It was the first gun control organisation in the UK.

…

They said: “Around one percent of the population of UK owns a gun yet these people, mostly men, have dictated policy on gun control for years. They can do this because they are very well connected to the country’s Establishment, particularly within the Tory party.

“After every shooting tragedy there is a public outcry but usually this does not result in meaningful change. Dunblane was the exception. After that horrific event in 1996, the new Labour Government introduced a complete ban on handguns that turned us away from what was then the fastest-growing sport in the UK.

“Now we are at another crossroads after the dreadful tragedy in Keyham. What should be done this time to make a real lasting difference?

Let’s remember that the UK has some of the strictest gun control policies anywhere in the world, and these people are bent out of shape because some people don’t want to see it be even more strict.

I mean, how much stricter can you be and not just outright ban any and all ownership of firearms?

Most people might not know it, but there’s a long and storied history of hunting in the UK. They’ve got a hunting culture that is quite different from ours, but it still exists. And these people are bent out of shape because the people most likely to be impacted by additional regulations are putting up a fight?

Well, yeah, they are. They should be.

The UK had every advantage with regard to preventing mass shootings if gun control advocates are to be believed. It did nothing to stop Portsmouth from happening and it’ll do nothing to prevent the next mass shooting there.

That’s because gun control isn’t and has never been the answer. I don’t pretend to know what is, but we have clear evidence about what isn’t.

The problem is that people like these don’t want to actually look. They won’t accept reality as it is, which, I suppose, is another possible definition of insanity.