Oh, sure, they pretend to. They make sure the media sees their crocodile tears following every public shooting. They do their little sit-ins for measures that gut due process, and they push selective gun bans that do nothing about the underlying madness that grips our society.

But when it comes to initiatives that actually reduce violence, they clam up. Case in point: current Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Tim Kaine. As Mayor of Richmond, he backed a program that actually reduced gun violence, and now he’s taking flak for it.

That’s not Alanis Morissette irony; it’s the real thing. Democrats don’t really care about inner-city violence, which represents the vast majority of firearms-related homicides in this country. They care about symbolic gestures that score them political points.

Among other things, Project Exile was notable for receiving the support of both the NRA and the Brady Campaign (then known as Handgun Control, Inc.). It was hailed by law enforcement. So, what happened? Within four years, it withered away from a lack of funding and complaints that people who actually committed crimes with guns were receiving stiff prison sentences.

Another effective strategy was Operation Ceasefire, a deterrence program lauded by the DOJ for reducing Boston’s juvenile homicide rate by 63%. The so-called Boston Miracle was empirically verifiable, and its results were repeatable.

So, where are we on that now? Interest waned, and the money followed. Then the Newtown shooting put guns back on the political radar. The President said he wanted a “conversation” on gun violence, and that all the cards were supposedly on the table.

California pastor Michael McBride approached Vice President Biden with the idea of more funding for Operation Ceasefire on the premise that, well, it actually worked to reduce gun violence. The response from the White House was a total lack of interest. Apparently, the only cards on the table were limiting the amount of rounds someone can have in a magazine and a expanding a background check system that is routinely ignored by gang members.

This is the grim calculus of the gun-control lobby. The vast majority of homicide victims are minorities in our inner cities, but Democrats only get their hackles up when it happens to suburban whites.