I can’t imagine the pain the families of the victims of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting massacre are feeling. They’re in my thoughts and prayers.

It takes a severe mental defect to contemplate the murder of 20 young children. Adam Lanza was a very sick man.

The focus in the coming days, weeks and months from a public policy standpoint should be on the failures in our mental health system at identifying and, if necessary, committing these people to an institution where they are no longer a danger to the public. This is not easy. This is not cheap, but it is something that government money should be spent on.

Mental health won’t be the focus of the coming weeks. It will be gun control. Mother Jones, the liberal magazine has a helpful timeline of mass shootings in America in the last 30 years. Note that during the years the so-called “assault weapons” ban was in effect that there were more than a dozen mass shootings leaving more than 200 dead and injured.

But this time, they tell us, it will work.

The dumbest argument I’ve seen—and I’ve seen it repeatedly lately—is that the Second Amendment should only apply to firearms that were available at the time the Constitution was ratified. Where did I see this claim? On the internet. These same people will insist that the dreck they post on the Internet is protected by the First Amendment. You see where I’m going…

Also, in 1787, the right to keep and bear arms included cannons. Those are currently illegal under federal law. If we’re limited to muskets, do cannons become legal once again?

There’s evil in this world. Banning all firearms wouldn’t change that simple fact.