Sometimes, people need a reality check.

Coincidentally, the Kansas City Star has a feature called Reality Check. It's described as a series "holding those with power to account and shining a light on their decisions."

To be fair, those with power often need to be held to account for their actions. But we should also remember that when the media says that, what they mean is that they're going to question every decision they disagree with and really not ask questions of anything else.

So, in the wake of the Kansas City parade shooting, this particular series decided to take issue with lawmakers in both Kansas and Missouri not passing gun control.

Three and a half months later, the Missouri and Kansas legislatures, both controlled by GOP supermajorities, have ended their annual sessions without passing any significant limits on guns or additional safety requirements.

“I don’t think Republicans did anything at all to address gun violence or mental health,” Weber, a Kansas City Democrat, said.

Missouri and Kansas have among the most relaxed gun laws in the nation. Both legislatures have steadily chipped away at restrictions to create a permissive atmosphere that has contributed to the proliferation of firearms in both states.

...

The rally shooting posed perhaps the biggest test of support in recent years of both state’s permissive gun laws, especially in Missouri, where the shooting occurred. But in both states, firearms-related bills largely went nowhere, as Republican lawmakers tamped down on discussions of guns even as Democrats continued to speak about the shooting.

Democrats offered proposals, as they have in past years, that would have established so-called “red flag” systems to allow courts to in some instances to order someone to temporarily surrender their firearms during a mental health crisis. They also offered measures to require guns to be stored in locked containers and restore permitting requirements for concealed weapons.

Missing from this discussion, though, are any facts about the shooting itself.

See, if you're going to say that the shooting shows a need for gun control, which is implied throughout the piece and was explicitly declared by numerous anti-gun voices in both states, you need to look at the fact of the shooting itself.

The reason that's not done is simple. Those facts don't support the anti-gun narrative.

For example, those involved in the shooting generally weren't carrying firearms lawfully. Two of those arrested were juveniles who couldn't lawfully carry a gun no matter what. Three others obtained guns via various illegal means and then carried them unlawfully.

In other words, the suspects broke what gun control laws there were so there's no reason to believe they wouldn't break additional laws as well.

What that means is that the issue has nothing at all to do with guns, so why should lawmakers trip over themselves to alienate their constituents--people who have a tendency to like their gun rights and are uninterested in gun control--just to pass laws that wouldn't have stopped the shooting anyway?

And yet, that was never brought up. It's simply assumed that the rational response to a shooting is gun control when there's nothing rational about it.

Funny how that works, isn't it?