Russia is a country that has never exactly been big on the right to keep and bear arms. Their laws aren't as restrictive as they might have been in the past, but considering some of the laws they had in the past, well, it's also not a great example for anti-gunners to bring up in most instances.

But while their laws are looser than they used to be, they're anything but a permissive nation when it comes to guns.

And yet, despite this, it seems Russia suffered yet another mass shooting.

Attacks on police posts, churches and a synagogue in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Dagestan have left 19 police officers and several civilians dead. Six gunmen were also killed.

The apparently coordinated attacks targeted the cities of Derbent and Makhachkala on the Orthodox festival of Pentecost.

The assailants have not been officially identified, but Dagestan has in the past been the scene of Islamist attacks.

The republic's head, Sergei Melikov, said it was understood who was behind the organisation of the attacks, without giving details.

Two churches and a synagogue were targeted in Sunday's attacks, as well as a police post in Makhachkala, Dagestan's largest city. An Orthodox Church priest was among those killed.

Mr Melikov said several civilians had lost their life, including a priest, Father Nikolai Kotelnikov, who he said had served in Derbent for more than 40 years.

Mr Melikov announced that three days of mourning would begin on Monday.

For the mathematically impaired, that means more than 20 people were killed in the attack.

This is beyond awful, and the fact that both a synagogue and two churches were the target of the attack muddies the water just a bit with regard to potential motives. Had it just been the synagogue, for example, antisemitism could be a driving force. 

Of course, Russian officials say they know who is responsible for the attack.

The gunmen have not yet been officially identified, but in a video on Telegram, Mr Melikov said their attack had been prepared abroad and that Dagestan was now directly involved in Russia's war in Ukraine.

"We understand who is behind the organisation of the terrorist attacks and what goal they pursued," he said.

A leading Russian nationalist in occupied Ukraine, Dmitry Rogozin, warned that if every attack was blamed on "the machinations of Ukraine and Nato, this pink mist will lead us to big problems".

...

Dagestan, one of the poorest parts of Russia, is a predominantly Muslim republic.

Between 2007 and 2017, a jihadist organisation called the Caucasus Emirate, and later the Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus, staged attacks in Dagestan and the neighbouring Russian republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria.

Following an attack on the Crocus City Hall venue near Moscow in March, authorities pointed the finger of blame at Ukraine and the West, even though the Islamic State group claimed it.

In other words, Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine had the nerve to not just roll over, and so every attack that happens now must be Ukrainian in origin.

When it's probably not.

I can only say "probably" because if Ukraine gets desperate enough, someone there might decide to try something like this, but it's doubtful. After all, terrorism is a damn good way to evaporate any goodwill they have with the West. We're not fond of innocent civilians being targeted. Since they rely on the West for weapons, it seems unlikely they'd pull something like this off for any reason.

So that leaves Islamic terrorism, which Russia seems to forget is a thing. They're rather myopic in their attempts to blame Ukraine, but they know all that stuff I wrote above just as well as we do, so they're probably hoping we'd believe them.

Yet since it wasn't Ukraine, it means whoever did it had to either smuggle guns in from elsewhere--which shouldn't be that easy since Russia is surrounded by other gun-controlled nations--or the terrorists got guns inside of Russian territory.

In either case, Russia's gun control laws did jack squat to keep the bad guys disarmed but probably made sure that absolutely no one in any of these houses of worship could fight back in the early moments. By the time the police got involved, the bad guys were prepared, which is why the cops lost so many people.

Another example of how gun control doesn't work.