Crime is still high, no matter what President Joe Biden has tried to sell to the American people. It’ll always be too high–the only acceptable crime rate is zero, after all, and that’s just not going to happen–but right now, it’s high compared to the pre-pandemic years.

For a lot of people, that means we desperately need gun control.

Whether they think guns are cursed objects that put violent thoughts into people’s heads or they just think that some people are only violent because they have a particular tool with which to act upon their inner violent urges with is largely irrelevant. They seem to think that guns are the problem when we already know that our non-gun homicide rate is higher than most other developed nations’ total homicide rates.

It’s not the guns.

This is where WA state Rep. Jim Walsh’s comments on the subject come into play.

Nineteenth Legislative District state Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, has reaffirmed his commitment to public safety and constitutional rights during the 2025 legislative session, he stated in a news release this week.

“Gun control is not the answer, crime control is,” Walsh said.

Walsh is taking a stand against bill proposals he argues will harm law-abiding Washingtonians without addressing the root causes of violence.

“It’s no surprise that some extreme anti-gun rights legislators and groups are pushing for more constitutionally dubious firearm restrictions this year,” Walsh stated in the release. “They’re worried that their previous proposals are losing in court, so they’re anxious to ‘make hay’ before the courts overturn their bad ideas. But some of these proposals are so extreme, so flagrantly in violation of the letter and spirit of Article 1, Section 24 of the Washington State Constitution, that they beggar belief.”

Walsh said the decade-long push for restrictive gun control has failed to deliver results.

“For over 10 years, extreme anti-gun rights activists in Olympia have been impairing and infringing the right of law-abiding Washingtonians to defend themselves,” he said. “During that same time, homicides are up, violent assaults are up and crimes of all sorts are up. The anti-gun rights activists claim their proposals will make Washington safer. But they haven’t. Their ideas have failed.”

Now, it can be argued that all criminal laws boil down to crime control, but the overall point Walsh is making here is that gun control simply doesn’t work.

He goes on to speak in favor of measures that crack down on criminals who use guns, which is a popular enough sentiment with many Republican lawmakers. I’m not a fan of that approach though, in part because it lends validity to the idea that the gun is the problem.

Is it somehow better for someone to be beaten to death with a hammer than them having been shot? I mean, gunshots aren’t exactly fun, but I’m a lot more worried about someone who would beat another to death in such a manner.

But with that said, I do agree that the focus needs to be on the criminals. What we need is a multi-prong approach that focuses on increased sentencing for violent criminals to remove them from the streets as well as efforts seeking to undermine the cycle of violence we see all too often on our city streets.