Gun control advocates like to claim they want to respect the Second Amendment, they just want what they call “common sense” measures in place. The say these laws won’t stop you or me from exercising our right to keep and bear arms, they’ll just make it harder for bad people to do bad things.

Now, many are picking up on the recent coverage of “mistaken” shootings to try and prove that something needs to be done.

The Guardian recently did a piece about them, and there’s an interesting quote that kind of gives up the game on gun control.

“A lot of people who shouldn’t have guns, who don’t need them, who don’t know how to use them safely … are fearful and trigger happy,” said the president of Global Action on Gun Violence, Jonathan Lowy. “And it’s inevitable that that will lead to tragedies like we’re seeing.”

Now, it’s not quite as bad as Gabby Giffords saying “no more guns,” of course, but it’s still pretty bad. I added emphasis here for what should be obvious reasons.

Lowy argues that a lot of these people “shouldn’t” have guns and “don’t need them,” but few of those involved in these kinds of shootings are felons or suffer from any kind of mental illness that should preclude them from enjoying their rights.

What we see here is that Lowy is suggesting that need somehow matters when it comes to the Second Amendment, which has never been true of any other constitutionally protected right.

After all, we don’t have to show the need to log into Twitter and criticize the government. We don’t need to show need when we walk into a church. We don’t show need when we gather in groups to protest. We don’t have to show any need to exercise our Fourth Amendment rights. We don’t even need to show it when we want to prevent government troops from being quartered in our homes against our will.

Rights exist independently of any “need” in part because someone can always argue you really don’t have it.

Look at what led to the Bruen decision for a prime example.

Had no one decided “need” was to be required before someone could lawfully carry a firearm, there would have been no Bruen decision.

Now Lowy wants to suggest that some people don’t need guns?

Well, that’s not his place.

While these so-called mistaken shootings are terrible and awful, we don’t chip away at people’s rights because a few people–and there is a distinct lack of statistics from people like Lowy suggesting this is common–act inappropriately.

This would be akin to trying to remove protections for a free press because there was a spate of plagiarism stories like we saw several years ago.

The truth is, though, Lowy isn’t saying this because of what’s been happening and been reported. This is what he thinks all the time.

When they tell you they don’t want to interfere with your Second Amendment rights, just a smidge of gun control to keep the “wrong sort” from getting guns, remember that to them, you’re the wrong sort.