Why do heinous crimes always bring out the ill-informed supporters of gun control to start crying foul?

In the latest example, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba suggested at a Monday press conference that a lack of gun control was a contributing factor in the recent rash of shootings in the capital city.

“It is also time to have a very real conversation about gun control,” Lumumba said. “It is past time to have a conversation.”

Gun control? Does the mayor of Mississippi’s largest city truly believe that the thugs who woke up Sunday morning, drove to a tiny church and put a bullet in the church’s pastor would give a damn about a gun law?

They certainly didn’t care about the law against murder or robbery.

They just killed a man in cold blood – at a house of God, no less.

What about the 19-year-old gunned down at a Jackson Walmart?

Does the mayor think the three men in their 20s charged with that would have settled their disagreement by arm wrestling if we had tighter gun laws?

Lumumba seems to believe that legal, law-abiding citizens who choose to carry weapons are somehow encouraging criminal thugs to do the same.

“The contradiction of gun control is that we don’t want young people with a car early in their lives, and we shouldn’t want young people with a weapon,” the mayor said. “We shouldn’t be arming people who haven’t matured.”

No one, not even the National Rifle Association’s most maniacal members would suggest guns should be in the hands of unsupervised children.

To suggest different is not only ludicrous, it’s disingenuous and misses the greater problem — criminals who don’t have respect for other people’s lives or property.

Cold hearts, not legal guns, are the problem here. Until the mayor comprehends that, the city cannot address the underlying societal problems that lead to such violence and law abiding citizens will continue to fear being caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time in the capital city.