Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) said the quiet part out loud last Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" when host Kristin Welker asked him, "Do you think that there is any law that could have prevented this tragedy in your state?"
After expressing sympathy for the victims' families and proclaiming that mass killings were a "tragic form of American exceptionalism," Welker tried to get Warnbock to stop dodging the question and asked him again: "Is there a specific law" that the senator thinks could have prevented the crime?
"Listen, there is no one single law that will stop all of these tragedies," Warnock finally conceded.
Warnock is guilty of the political crime of desperately wanting to "do something about the problem" even if nothing can be done. Many gun laws have been passed in the wake of school shootings in the heat of the moment. They haven't stopped a single mass killing, and no law ever will. But that didn't stop Warnock from having a desire to legislate.
"Any country that allows this to continue without putting forward just commonsense gun safety measures is a country that has, in a tragic way, just lost its way," he said.
What does Warnock mean by "common sense gun safety measures" when no law could have prevented the tragedy?
Welker wondered whether Warnock would support "mandatory gun buy-back proposals" of the type that Kamala Harris supported when she ran for president in 2020.
"I think, again, there's not one single thing that will make all of this go away," he answered.
Warnock did vaguely favor getting "these military-style weapons" off the streets with regard to the AR-15 family of rifles, and he made happy noises about "universal background checks," but he refused to advocate for any specific law after admitting he couldn't think of one that would have changed events.
He did repeat his "tragic form of American exceptionalism" line while calling for unspecified "reasonable gun safety laws." He must have practiced that turn of phrase.
Indeed, politicians promise that some gun laws like universal registration and banning "assault weapons" will save lives, and anyone who opposes them is a gun nut who wants kids to die. But the problem with these and other laws is compliance. A Connecticut law requiring people who own "assault weapons" to register them has gotten 15% compliance. A similar law in New York saw a 5% compliance rate.
This "Gun Control Theater" where politicians beat their chests and weep for the children then propose useless or worse-than-useless laws to "do something about the problem" has got to stop. The gun laws already on the books are either not being enforced or are impossible to enforce.
Simply piling on new laws and regulations just to make politicians look good is not the answer. Enforcing laws against criminals owning guns and keeping guns out of the hands of the severely mentally ill are just two laws already on the books that would prevent some gun crimes.
Mass shootings are undoubtedly troubling, but they remain rare, accounting for 0.2 percent of firearm deaths (suicides make up 60 percent). That makes them a poor target for policy of any sort.
But when you're a political creature like Raphael Warnock, your hammer is legislation, and every concern looks like a nail. He concedes he can't think of a law that would make a difference and then calls for more laws, anyway.
Politicians are going to do what politicians are going to do. We must oppose their unnecessary, useless attempts to legislate away what can't be legislated away.
