Mandatory storage laws are one of those things that sounds good to a lot of people when they don’t actually understand anything but what the media pushes.

They usually don’t take anything else into account, including an individual’s situation, and create a blanket rule that applies to everyone regardless of any other factor.

To be fair, locking up one’s guns when not in use is smart. These laws, however, decide what “in use” means and you don’t get a say in it.

The media likes to push these kinds of laws, and CBS Pittsburgh is doing just that.

Some local lawmakers are pushing for new gun laws in Pennsylvania.

Currently, there’s no law requiring gun owners to lock up their firearms, putting children’s lives at risk. More than half the states in the U.S. have child access storage laws, but Pennsylvania isn’t on the list. And CeaseFirePA says without one, it’s putting kids’ lives at risk.

For years, local lawmakers and CeaseFirePA have been advocating for child access prevention laws in hopes to protect children from getting their hands on deadly weapons. They say it’s that kind of law that could have made a difference a few months ago after investigators said a 4-year-old boy in Rostraver found a loaded handgun on the floor in a bedroom of his home and shot himself.

That’s a terrible situation. I can understand why people are upset and why some of them are wanting a law. Irresponsible parents like this probably should be punished for their failures, right?

It’s just a shame there wasn’t already a law on the books.

Oh, wait. There is.

Ronnie Lynn continues to recover, receiving physical therapy for his injuries. Both his parents, Michael Lynn and Laura Steele, were charged on Monday for recklessly endangering the welfare of a child.

So what they’re pushing for is a storage law that would likely have also been ignored by these parents, allegedly.

Absolutely brilliant.

I mean, there’s already a law on the books. Why not make an effort to insure everyone in Pennsylvania is aware that this is what could happen to them if they don’t make sure their guns aren’t accessible to their young children? Making people aware of a law makes a lot more sense than passing another one that the same people will likely break.

Just because there’s not a law specifically stating that guns need to be locked up, it’s clear there’s a law prohibiting parents from being idiots.

Yet the truth of the matter is that CeaseFirePA doesn’t care about that one way or another. What’s most important is demonizing guns directly. Storage laws are part of the effort to do that. If another law can apply but isn’t specifically about firearms, then its behavior that’s being punished regardless of there being a gun or not.

And we all know how anti-gunners feel about such things.

Pennsylvania doesn’t need any kind of storage law, regardless of what term you try to apply. What they need is for people to be aware of the laws that apply already.