I still don’t know what possessed so many of my fellow Georgians to elect Sen. Raphael Warnock to office, but he’s there now.

What’s more, he’s loud about things like gun control, especially in the aftermath of the Apalachee High School shooting in Winder, Georgia. That’s probably to be expected though. After all, he’s an anti-gun lawmaker who just saw a mass murder happen in the state he represents where most people don’t share his views.

He’s going to pop off.

Yet in and amongst his many comments on the subject was one that didn’t get a lot of play with much of the media, but J.D. Tuccille over at Reason caught it.

The urge to “do something” in the face of tragic events, no matter if that something is constructive or destructive, is irresistible for most politicians. We see that with Sen. Raphael Warnock (D–Ga.), who concedes he can’t think of any law that could have presented a recent school shooting. But that doesn’t stop him from advocating more legislation anyway. It’s a bad habit among officials that threatens more friction between government and the public without solving any problems.

“There Is No One Single Law That Will Stop All of These Tragedies”

Last week’s murder of four people by yet another mass shooter at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia was a topic of conversation on the latest edition of Meet the Press.

“Do you think that there is any law that could have prevented this tragedy in your state, senator?” Meet the Press host Kristin Welker asked the lawmaker.

Warnock expressed sympathy for the people of Winder, as well as concern over the recurrence of mass killings in the United States which he described as a “tragic form of American exceptionalism.” He went on at such length that Welker reiterated her original question, asking “is there a specific law” that the senator thinks could have prevented the crime.

“Listen, there is no one single law that will stop all of these tragedies,” Warnock finally conceded.

And yet, Warnock keeps pushing for gun control just the same.

If nothing else, this shows what gun control really is and what it’s not.

It’s not a solution to a problem that every decent American sees as something we hope to never experience again. 

No, it’s political theater. It’s a salve politicians offer to make people feel like something is being done to address the issue of public mass shootings, all while doing absolutely nothing about public mass shootings, particularly in our schools.

Warnock knows and acknowledges that there’s no law that can stop these things from happening. He admitted it on national television. He told the entire nation that he knew there was no law Congress could pass that would stop these things from happening.

But he persists in trying to push gun control on the American people just the same.

Either it’s theater or there’s a darker motivation at work.

Since Warnock is also a pastor, one would hope that it’s not anything worse than theater. Even then, though, one has to wonder how he reconciles his faith with his admission that he pushes policies in the aftermath of something like this that he knows won’t solve the issue.