Birmingham, Alabama has a crime problem. A lot of cities its size do, and when they’re located in pro-gun states, that means folks there seem to think gun control is the answer.

Granted, they think that elsewhere, too, but in anti-gun states, there’s usually not much standing in their way.

In Alabama, there is.

And while many are clamoring for restrictions on lawful firearm ownership, Attorney General Steve Marshall had some words for those folks that they’re not going to want to hear.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall is arguing against the narrative pushed by some Democrats that the state needs stricter gun control to combat a rise in crime. The issue resurfaced this year after Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin called for more gun control in response to a mass shooting in his city that killed 4 people.

“We don’t have any interest in this whole debate about Second Amendment rights,” Woodfin said at the time. “We don’t have any interest in people wanting to protect their homes, militia, whatever else you want to say. There’s a certain element in this city, there’s a certain element in this community, who are too comfortable riding around with semi-automatic weapons, automatic weapons, conversions, switches and everything else whose only intent, hellbent intent, is to harm people, shoot people, kill people.”

Marshall told WVNN’s “The Yaffee Program,” that the statistics just don’t back up the arguments in favor of more gun laws.

“I don’t buy that at all,” Marshall said. “If in fact that was the driver, then why don’t we see more evidence of the consistent rise in violent crime across our state? We don’t.

Marshall pointed to other cities in the state that have the same laws surrounding guns but haven’t seen a rise in crime.

“Look, Huntsville is a great example of that, right? I mean, you can see a significant contrast between violent crime in the Tennessee Valley versus what we’ve seen in Montgomery and Birmingham,” he explained. “And so if in fact if the gun issue was what was the driver of that criminal problem, then the data ought to reflect that in other places, and it simply doesn’t.”

This brings up a good point, of course. If the issue was, in fact, a lack of gun control, then we’d see problems extending well beyond a couple of cities. It would be a statewide issue.

And it’s not.

But let’s talk a bit about that mass shooting for a moment. Woodfin is demanding gun control, but that problem had a root cause that’s much easier to solve, apparently. As Cam wrote on Monday, the suspect in the shooting was allowed to walk free with nothing but probation after being charged with not just one, but two counts of attempted murder. He ended up with just three years probation for trying to kill two people.

While harsh sentencing doesn’t act as much of a deterrence to crime–criminals always figure they’re too smart to get caught, despite all evidence to the contrary–it does at least keep people off the streets.

So what Woodfin wants is for the entire state’s population of lawful gun owners to pay because the criminal justice system in Birmingham can’t seem to lock up attempted murderers.

The truth of the matter is that no matter how you want to cut it, the problems aren’t about guns. That’s just a handy excuse for officials to use when they don’t want anyone looking at how horrifically they’re handling things.