After the shooting at Michigan State University last year, the state went on something of a tear, passing a number of gun control laws. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer wanted them all along, of course, but the shooting was the perfect pretext for a number of regulations.

One of those was the ever-popular red flag law, a measure specifically claimed to empower authorities to take guns from those who might carry out a mass shooting.

Yet on Saturday, there wasn’t a lot of evidence of it working when a gunman opened fire at a splash pad in the Detroit suburb of Rochester Hills.

Nine people were injured, including two young children and their mother, after a shooter opened fire at a splash pad in a Detroit suburb where families gathered to escape the summer heat Saturday. Police tracked the shooter to a home, where the man apparently shot himself to death, authorities said.

An 8-year-old boy was shot in the head and in critical condition Saturday night, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said during a news conference. The boy’s mother also was in critical condition after being wounded in the abdomen and leg, and his 4-year-old brother was in stable condition with a leg wound.

The other six victims, all 30 or older, were in stable condition, Bouchard said. They included a husband-and-wife couple and a 78-year-old man.

The shooting happened just after 5 p.m. at a city park featuring a recreation area with a nonslip surface where people can turn on sprays and fountains of water to play in. Bouchard said the attack appeared to be random, with the shooter driving up to the park, walking to the splash pad and firing as many as 28 times, stopping multiple times to reload.

At least one witness reported that the shooter appeared to use two handguns during the attack, but that has not yet been confirmed, the sheriff said.

Thankfully, no one was killed and I hope and pray all of the injured make a full recovery, particularly the eight-year-old boy. 

However, what we can see is that the red flag law clearly didn’t accomplish much of anything. It’s still too early to know of any motives or if there were any indications the shooter was going to attempt something like this.

We also don’t know anything about how he obtained his weapon or weapons–the authorities confirm at least one handgun was recovered at the scene. as well as three empty magazines. The recovery of the gun led to police identifying a suspect quickly. They found him at his home, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A semi-automatic rifle was found on the table. Authorities claim they may have stopped a “second chapter” to this tragedy due to a quick containment of the suspect, but since they didn’t report hearing the gunshot itself, I suspect otherwise.

Police claim the subject was dealing with some “mental health challenges,” but no one in authority was notified. 

As a result, there was no red flag order–the very law billed as the measure needed to prevent these kinds of shootings. 

While the shooter had a semiauto rifle, he didn’t use that, thus illustrating that assault weapon bans aren’t particularly useful, either.

In fact, we know the shooter fired at least 28 shots and police recovered three magazines. That at least hints of magazines not capable of holding more than 10 rounds, another talking point gun control advocates bring up with regard to mass shootings.

Unfortunately, despite identifying a suspect quickly, we still know very little about what happened. We don’t know why this guy thought it was a good idea to try and kill people just trying to enjoy a summer weekend. Then again, far too few are asking those questions and are instead looking to see how they can use something like this to infringe on our right to keep and bear arms.

The last set of laws didn’t work, so they’ll keep whittling away at the Second Amendment and pretending it’ll actually do something.

Clearly, it won’t.