That's certainly fair.

But states like New York don't tend to see it that way. They pass what they want, then try to rationalize it in the courtroom after the fact. Meanwhile, lawmakers continue to try to argue that violent crime means they need more and more restrictions, and that our rights need to take a back seat to public safety because the laws already on the books aren't working well enough.

Yet the folks at Gothamist took a look and saw something interesting, namely how rarely some of the existing laws--the ones that were so important to pass in the first place--are used.

New York City rarely leverages state laws meant to prevent potentially dangerous people from having or buying guns, state data shows.

Now, as the number of people seeking permits to arm themselves in the city grows following a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision aimed at making it easier to carry a gun, anti-violence advocates are asking whether local officials have dedicated enough attention to a tool that could prevent shootings and save lives.

In the last five years, the state has passed several measures encouraging — and in some cases requiring — police, prosecutors and family members to ask judges for documents known as extreme risk protection orders, which prohibit certain people from obtaining or keeping guns. The law, which was expanded after the 2022 mass shooting at a Buffalo grocery store, targets people who authorities believe would use legal guns to do harm – often domestic violence and suicide.

Now, physicians, psychiatrists and other medical providers are authorized to seek orders for their patients. Police and prosecutors are also mandated to apply when they receive “credible information” that someone is likely to seriously harm themself or someone else.

But since 2019, New York City courts have issued only about 1% of the state's orders despite the city having about 40% of the state’s population. By contrast, Long Island’s Suffolk County, which has about 13% of the state’s population, has issued more than 30% of the orders in that same time — the most of any county in the state.

This section was immediately followed by someone from Giffords saying everyone needs to follow the lead of the county that uses them the most, Suffolk County, which ramped up the use of the red flag laws after the Buffalo shooting. Of course, the law was on the books and no one used it in that case, not just law enforcement.

Yet the question being asked, what good is the law if you're not going to use it, is valid.

A common refrain among some gun rights advocates is to ask why are you trying to pass new laws when you're not enforcing the laws on the books already. Now, again, I think those are unconstitutional, but it's also a valid ask. Why are you demanding more restrictions when you're doing nothing with the ones already there.

This is a similar thing. 

As anti-gunners push for assault weapon bans and gun-free zones on every porta-potty in their states, there's no evidence that the laws on the books are even being used. If people are so concerned about mass murders that they simply must ban so-called weapons or 'ghost guns,' then why aren't you using the red flag laws on the books instead?

The answer, of course, is that it's easy to look at something in hindsight and figure out there was a problem. A lot of us did that after Parkland. Then, the vision is so clear that we could see how something like that shooting was inevitable, but at the time, it's easy to figure that isn't going to happen.

Suffolk County reacted after they failed to see the warnings before Buffalo by basically taking no chances. They've used the law thousands of times since then, which means there's no judgment being applied. They're just grabbing for everything.

Of course, Suffolk County isn't any safer, but the question for me is why do they keep restricting guns when there's so much evidence that it just doesn't work? 

Because, honestly, it's never been about that.