Inevitably, a horrific gun-related tragedy such as we recently witnessed in Tucson will bring out cries by the well-meaning, and the not so well-meaning, for tighter handgun control.

As if by screaming loudly enough, and sternly enough, we can deter the criminally insane.

Still, when downstate Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel, a strong gun control advocate, said last week, "the fact that, legally, Mr. (Jared) Loughner could get a gun should give us all great pause," I can see a lot of heads nodding in agreement, including mine. Loughner, of course, is the accused shooter in the Tucson massacre.

I would love to hide behind the fact Loughner was far away in Arizona, where handgun possession is a lot easier than here in New York. But I would not pretend to suggest such a tragedy could not happen in New York, because it has.

If anything, that proves my point that legislation will not correct the problem, because we are among the most regulated handgun states in the nation and have been for the longest time.

After reading details of Loughner's personal history, what I find even more disturbing than the fact he had a Glock semiautomatic pistol is that family and friends apparently did nothing about his behavior as it became more dangerously erratic and incoherent over time.

No, I'm not blaming them for what happened, but are we our brother's keeper?

In these matters, we are, and more and more I am convinced there's merit to promoting a greater sense of accountability and responsibility beyond those who own the gun to those who best know the owner's state of mind. I don't mean a legal obligation, I mean a moral one, one that needs to be broadened and heightened through education.

Friends who love their friends don't let them drive drunk. Keeping guns away from the mentally ill, by the very nature of insane behavior, falls to others as well. Not through some formal hot line that could harass innocent gun owners, or by some overworked government agency that would be blamed when something goes wrong and ignored otherwise, but through old-fashioned personal intervention. Like when it's time for grandpa to give up his driver's license.

My hunch is that even here in New York, Jared Loughner most likely would have gotten a legal permit to own his handgun, if he was sane when he got it. Logically, I see no way around the dilemma posed by the Jared Loughners of the world unless friends and family get involved, without putting at risk and great expense the vast majority of legal gun owners who don't need or deserve more legalistic hoops to go through.

Microstamping shell casings with information about the last gun owner, the current darling of gun control advocates such as Assemblywoman Schimel and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, would have had no effect on the outcome of the Tucson shooting spree, or prevented it. Who legally owned the gun last wasn't a factor. It rarely is.

Here in New York, criminals use stolen guns or those brought in from other states along the Eastern seaboard, where access to handguns is relatively easy, to commit most crimes. Only a head case would use his own registered weapon in a crime, and as I've already noted such people rarely try to hide their identity.

The problem with microstamping for those of us in New York is that it won't work. Unless we have a national database, it's spitting in the ocean. Even then it won't tell us much that's useful.

And the chances of getting a national database of microstamped semiautomatics, with a technology that has yet to stand up to real testing and that is proprietary to begin with, are nil. Plus, it won't affect revolvers, where shell casings generally remain in the cylinder. So, all it will do is drive up the cost for gun manufacturers doing business here. It will force them to retool, or, as some have already suggested, it will chase them out of the state.

This has been the warning for what will happen in California, the only state that has so far passed a microstamping law. That was back in 2007. It's on hold, because the process itself is encumbered by patents. Several gun manufacturers, though, have stated that if such a law is implemented, they will simply stop doing business in California.

Last week, a spokesman for venerable Remington Arms Co. in Ilion, one of our cherished heritage industries and a major employer in financially beleaguered upstate, said pretty much the same thing about his company and New York.

Which, of course, brings a smile to Bloomberg, Schimel and our new attorney general, Eric Scheiderman. Backdoor gun control, which they want but New York does not need.

We passed the Sullivan Law, which requires handgun registration, exactly 100 years ago, and it's still one of the toughest in the nation. The truth is, we don't need to do a darned thing except wait for the rest of the country to catch up.

Contact FredLeBrun at 454-5453 or by e-mail at flebrun@timesunion.com.