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Gun control failures continue to prompt calls for more of it

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. The problem is that with something like gun control, those doing just that can rationalize to themselves that they’re actually doing something different each and ever time.

Take California (please?).

They have the most extensive gun control laws in the nation. More than 100 regulations dictating everything from what can be sold to how you have to store your gun can be found in the Golden State.

Yet, for many, that’s not enough. When something bad happened, the only solution is more of what failed.

There have been multiple shootings in California that affected many people. In January, California saw two mass shootings in three days.

There has been so much bloodshed this year that it almost feels like it’s just the beginning. These deadly events make us question why there hasn’t been anything done yet to reinforce gun control. It almost seems like guns are way too easy to acquire when they often fall into the wrong hands.

Yep. It does seem that way.

Part of the reason it seems that way is that events like this make headlines while ordinary citizens defending themselves get stuck on the internet equivalent of page eight.

The author, a high school student, at one point seems to be catching on to the reality over this topic.

California has the most gun laws of any state, but it seems that laws could be better since they did not stop these back-to-back mass shootings in January.

Some examples of gun violence really make us question why the shooter was able to access a gun, or why they were walking free.

In the killing of a deputy in Riverside, the shooter William Shae McKay was a “three strikes” felon and facing a life sentence but was out on bail, according to the Times.

When people with criminal records or people who are not in the right state of mind have access to guns, their violent actions have deadly consequences. Terrible things have happened because a gun has landed in the wrong hands. Guns aren’t something that should be played around with or that should be kept unlocked in homes where it could land in the hands of children.

There has to be better gun control laws and more effort into keeping them away from people who use them to harm.

Except there were laws designed to prevent just that.

What the author doesn’t grasp is that criminals do not follow the laws. They get guns because they want them and someone wants money and the two reach an agreement. They get guns because no manner of laws can perfectly secure a firearm and so they steal them.

Or, they’re law abiding people who have done nothing wrong until one day, they do.

Those are a distinct minority, but that’s what happened in the two mass shootings back in January.

See, the problem here is that people in California don’t really talk about how the laws failed. The media, politicians, and even the author’s teachers likely pontificate on how the system just doesn’t go far enough, but they gloss over so much else.

They never touch on the fact that our knife homicide rate in this country outpaces other nations’ total homicide rate.

It’s not the guns. The problem is and has always been people. Figure out how to address that and you won’t need a single gun law on the books.

Don’t, and you’ll keep having mass shootings no matter how much you infringe on the right to keep and bear arms. After all, extensive gun control didn’t help in Hamburg, Germany, now did it?