The murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson hasn’t sparked quite the same gun control push that one might have expected. Mostly, it’s because the activists who call for gun control generally approve of killing corporate executives of companies they don’t like. 

Yet the media has been pushing just the same as if the totality of Congress were behind new regulations.

This isn’t surprising, really, because the mainstream media likes to think of itself as shaping those pushes, not responding to them. It’s not working, but that just means they haven’t pushed hard enough.

And an editorial from the Portland Press Herald illustrates part of what that looks like.

The murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan has spotlighted the fury that many Americans feel toward the nation’s dysfunctional health insurance system.

It has also tapped a profane undercurrent in national discourse today that makes otherwise rational people think it’s acceptable to express such fury with dehumanizing jokes and memes about the violent taking of a life.

What isn’t getting enough attention, but should, is the alleged instrument of that violence.

Murder suspect Luigi Mangione was arrested in Pennsylvania carrying a “ghost gun” that authorities believe was the murder weapon. It’s part of a burgeoning industry of untraceable weapons that Congress should have cracked down on years ago — but that, thanks to congressional paralysis on any issue addressing gun violence, might soon enjoy expanded federal protection.

America’s federal gun laws are woefully inadequate, as proven by our worst-in-the-advanced-world firearms death rates, but there are some current restrictions that help.

Firearms manufacturers are required to stamp each new gun with a serial number. Acquisition and transfer records are required when the weapon is sold and resold. Criminal background checks are required for any gun purchase made through a federally licensed dealer. All of it is designed to both prevent gun violence and to aid police in tracking down perpetrators of violence when it happens.

“Ghost guns” are guns assembled by buyers from mail-order kits and/or 3D-printer plans instead of being sold as fully functioning weapons. The only logical reason for this roundabout process is to make it easier for people who aren’t supposed to have weapons to get them — and to make it harder for police to trace them when they’re used in crimes.

Except that criminals have been getting guns for decades, well after background checks and paperwork were established as requirements for gun purchases and even in states that ban so-called ghost guns.

For all the hysteria about so-called ghost guns, they forget that bad guys have been getting guns from a lot of places for a lot of years. History has been full of them doing just that.

And let’s not get too excited by the idea of gun tracing.

Which, of course, they do.

While the assassin could just as easily have killed Thompson with a standard-issue handgun, the fact that it was apparently a ghost gun could conceivably complicate the case against Mangione.

Police say the ghost gun found on Mangione is “consistent” with the type of gun used in the killing. But that doesn’t provide the solid link they might be able to establish if they could work with a serial number, manufacturing records, background checks and other law enforcement tools that, by intentional design, are not available for ghost guns.

Holy crap.

First, there are other ways to link the gun Mangione had in his possession with the weapon used to kill Thompson, assuming it’s the same firearm. Ballistics, for example.

However, even if they can’t link the gun to the killing, they had more than just that to make an arrest in the first place. All of that will be on display during the trial, and it’s probably going to be extensive.

Which is how they caught him in the first place.

For all the talk about gun tracing, history shows us that there’s not a lot of evidence of it actually solving crimes. Like, none. No evidence at all.

See, in order to trace a gun, you need the gun. Whoever killed Thompson didn’t exactly leave a gun at the scene of the crime. There was nothing to trace, which means that even if Mangione had used a traditionally manufactured firearm instead of the “ghost gun” he allegedly used, they still wouldn’t have been able to trace the gun. Not until after an arrest.

And even then, they’d still need to follow the same steps they’re currently following to link that firearm to the murder.

I mean, this is a newspaper editorial board. All they’d need to do is consult some of their own archives to see how murder cases were solved to see how idiotic this entire take actually is.

But that doesn’t strike the emotional note that the doomsaying does, which is why we have a screed like this in the first place.