Gangs are one of our biggest issues in this country. Gang violence and the culture surrounding them–a culture that often leads people who aren’t affiliated with gangs to act like they are, including feeling like they have to kill people who they don’t like–is the root cause of much of our violent crime.

And it hits everywhere, unfortunately.

Many figure that gun control will stop the violence. To evaluate those claims, let’s look at the case of a Wisconsin man who was just sentenced for providing a firearm used in a homicide.

One of three men charged in the shooting death last year of a 20-year-old man on Madison’s Near East Side was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in prison.

Julius D. Jones, 19, was not the person who fired the shots that killed Nicholas G. Taylor-Washington, of Madison, in the early morning hours of June 18 in the 600 block of East Dayton Street after mistaking him for a member of a rival gang. That person is believed to be Nathaniel R. Douglas, 25, and he is scheduled to stand trial next month for first-degree intentional homicide.

But Jones did provide the gun that was used in the killing. Investigators have said he, Douglas and Keyonta C. Blaney, 21, were in a car trying to find a party at around 3:30 a.m. when Jones took the gun out of a backpack and gave it to Blaney. Shortly thereafter, Jones saw Taylor-Washington on the street and pointed him out to Douglas, and Douglas took the gun from Blaney, got out of the car and fired 11 shots, one of of which killed Taylor-Washington, according to the criminal complaint in the case.

Jones pleaded guilty in June to first-degree reckless homicide as party to the crime.

Jones is only 19-years-old. He couldn’t lawfully buy a firearm, yet he had ready access to one and handed it over to someone else. We don’t know where it came from, but it wasn’t a licensed gun dealer, that’s for sure.

There’s no mention of the firearm being stolen, but then again, a lot of people don’t store the serial numbers for their firearms so they can report a gun stolen, but they can’t tell them which gun is theirs. As a result, a lot of crooks are caught with stolen guns but because the serial number isn’t listed, they get away with it.

I understand why many don’t have over those serial numbers, though.

Yet the truth of the matter is that despite the laws prohibiting Jones from buying a gun, he did so anyway. Why would more gun control do anything differently? Are you going to make it extra-illegal for him to buy a handgun? What would that accomplish? He clearly figured he could get away with it. At least someone in that car thought they could get away with murder, for crying out loud. You’re not going to dissuade someone like that with some gun control laws.

But funny how that always gets ignored in gun control discussions. It’s even funnier how it’s completely ignored when you bring it up.