The dust hasn’t fully settled in the wake of the shootings in Maine. There’s still a lot we don’t know.

However, one thing we do know thanks to surveillance video, is that the killer used an AR-15 or similar rifle. You know, a dreaded “assault weapon.”

Yeah, that’s going to make things interesting in the gun debate.

Unsurprisingly, anti-gun activists are firing up their calls for a new ban on such firearms.

There are renewed calls for AR-15 rifles to be banned in the US as the weapon is reported to have been used by the gunman in Lewiston, Maine, who killed at least 22 people and injured dozens more on Tuesday night.

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Since then, activists have used images of the weapon to symbolize the need for gun control, arguing that the assault rifle a weapon of war and that there is no need for members of the public to own them.

Gun violence prevention activist Shannon Watts epitomized the reaction from activists tweeting repeatedly on Tuesday night: ‘It’s harder to buy Sudafed than an AR-15 in Maine.’

It’s really not. You don’t need a background check to buy Sudafed, for crying out loud, but this is a typical talking point from Watts.

Anyway, moving on…

In the wake of Tuesday’s mass shooting, liberal pastor John Pavlovitz took to Facebook to say: ‘ The mass shooting in Maine was carried about with the same AR-15 that Republicans in Congress are wearing pins of. If you want to stop gun violence, stop electing Republicans.’

A person left a comment under that post reading: ‘And yet another Mass shooting in America … Another AR-15 ….22 Dead … More than +60 people hurt/ severely injured … More guns is NOT the answer … Thoughts and Prayers is NOT the answer.’

What transpired is beyond awful. We’re still sorting out how many people were killed–the latest figure as of this writing is that at least 16 were killed, though who knows where that will end–and these guys are ready to vilify a firearm for it.

It’s not surprising, though. After every mass shooting, someone renews calls for an assault weapon ban. I fully expect President Joe Biden to make just such a call any minute, and that’s assuming he hasn’t by the time this is published.

However, folks need to remember that it doesn’t take an “assault weapon” to kill a bunch of people. Let’s not forget about Virginia Tech, where 32 people were killed by a man with a couple of handguns. He didn’t need a so-called assault weapon to murder people and neither did this guy.

Those who seek to murder innocent people will use whatever weapons they have available. Even if you take away “assault weapons” and there’s no way to work around such a ban lawfully, they’ll just pick up another weapon and kill innocent people.

We’ve got to stop crying about gun control and start looking for real, meaningful solutions that don’t hinge on the bad guy preferring a particular weapon system over any others.

But that’s too much like work for the gun control crowd.