The gun control bill in Massachusetts is grotesque. Then again, what gun control bill isn’t?

This bill, however, is supposed to be a slightly watered-down version of a bill last year that died an inglorious death.

Part of the reason for that was because a lot of people were very loud in opposing the bill. That included a lot of police chiefs.

Luckily, this scaled-back version won’t have the same problems, right?

I mean, gun rights advocates are already lashing out, but the chiefs wouldn’t do that again, would they?

Well, yeah. They would.

The state’s police chiefs do not support the Legislature’s efforts to strengthen Massachusetts gun laws — and it’s unanimous.

Mark Leahy, former chief of the Northboro Police Department and the executive director of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, said his organization recently met and voted to come out against Bill HD.4607, or An Act modernizing firearm laws.

The bill simply won’t reduce crime, Leahy said.

“Earlier today our membership met. We ultimately polled our members concerning HD.4607 and the result was an unprecedented unanimous vote to not support this bill,” Leahy told the House Ways and Means Committee Tuesday.

Representing all 351 Bay State cities and towns and more than 100 university police departments, the law enforcement organization was joined by dozens of gun rights advocates and constitutionalists in opposing the gun control bill during a hearing held Tuesday.

That’s right. Even more police chiefs oppose this bill than last year’s.

For a supposedly watered-down version of that bill, this doesn’t bode well for HD.4607’s continued survival, now does it?

Oh, there are plenty of groups that do support it, but they’d support any level of gun control. They’re not going to suddenly drop their support from, well, anything with an anti-gun lean to it.

But just about everyone who actually understands things like guns and crime isn’t in the supporters’ camp. They recognize what kind of a trainwreck bill this is and want nothing to do with it.

The fact that it basically renders just about every gun currently on the market illegal is just one of the many issues that simply aren’t likely to be addressed.

Rep. Michael Day, who offered up this bill, somehow thought this was an easier sell to the people of Massachusetts, but it’s clear that he didn’t listen to what anyone had to say last time around.

Then again, anti-gunners tend not to be interested in listening in the first place. Not in what we have to say on the matter, at least.

So, if history repeats itself as I suspect, this bill will die and Day will pretend it’s a mystery as to why it failed yet again.

It’s just a shame he won’t put that kind of energy into looking into the kind of things that will actually do some good. There are tons of ways to address so-called gun violence, especially the suicide question which accounts for a lot of those deaths, only people like Day don’t care about that.

It’s gun control or nothing.

Well, I’m more than happy to settle with nothing and it seems a lot of people in Massachusetts are as well.