New Jersey is very proud of its gun control laws. They keep trying to add more, of course, but lawmakers there are most definitely of the belief that gun control works and they should have as much as they can get away with.

I’m pretty sure they left that line in the dust a long time ago, but that’s a topic for another time.

One big question is always whether gun control works. Gun control activists routinely cite studies claiming it does, though there’s reason to doubt the accuracy of pretty much all of those studies. However, when you actually read the news, that alone should raise some doubts.

Such as this awful story out of the Garden State.

A 14-year-old suspect was taken into custody on murder charges following a shootout with Newark, New Jersey, police officers Friday evening that left one dead and a second hospitalized, police and Essex county officials said.

The two officers involved in the shooting were part of a team investigating a report of illegal firearms when gunfire was exchanged in the city’s North Ward, in the area of Broadway and Carteret Street, officials said at a Saturday morning press conference.

Witnesses said they heard a string of gunshots after they saw officers running down the street on a commercial strip between a McDonald’s and White Castle restaurants near the Passaic River. 

Police and officials with the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office said both officers and the teenage suspect were injured in the altercation. The 14-year-old was taken to the hospital to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries, they said.

A five-year veteran of the police department, Officer Joseph Azcona, was shot and killed while he was still in his patrol car. The 26-year-old officer was pronounced dead at the hospital overnight.

Let’s just go out on a limb here and say that there’s absolutely no chance the 14-year-old suspect bought his gun legally.

I know, I know, that might be quite the leap here because we know so many children who are able to buy guns lawfully in so many other states. It’s not like the age for lawfully owning any kind of firearm is set at the federal level at 18; 21 for handguns. 

And what happened?

This. This happened.

Gun control laws don’t stop criminals. At best, they allow prosecutors to put an additional charge on criminals when they’re caught, but that’s about it. Considering how our jails and prisons seem to be equipped with revolving doors these days, gun control isn’t even accomplishing that.

But we should remember that these laws aren’t presented as a way to punish criminals. They’re sold to the public as a way to keep guns out of criminal hands.

Yet here we have a 14-year-old kid–someone just a little older than my daughter–who got a gun and used it to shoot two police officers, killing one and sending the other to the hospital.

If gun control works, how did it fail so spectacularly here? How was a literal child able to get a gun in one of the most gun-controlled states in the nation?

The short answer is that it doesn’t.

It’s well past time to stop focusing on guns and start focusing on criminals.