As we know, a madman stormed the Capital Gazette building in Annapolis on June 29, killing five. One would think that after any mass shooting, there would be an immediate onslaught of messaging about “access to guns,” and calls for stricter gun laws from the anti-gun crowd.

That wasn’t the case this time, though. The response was mostly silence. A silence that tells us what we can expect if gun controllers get their way, but these tragedies inevitably continue to happen: More silence.

Of course, there were some exceptions . Senate Democrats would be running to check Nancy Pelosi ’s batteries if she didn’t propose a bill every time she heard someone say the word “gun,” but most people were pretty shy about gun control this time. Why? Because the anti-gun crowd isn’t about saving lives, they’re about pushing a narrative — a narrative this shooting didn’t fit.

For one, the shooting couldn’t be blamed on some sort of black-clad, high-tech killing machine. Rather, it was carried out with the primitive yet pervasive weapon that has remained mostly unchanged since the late 1800s: the shotgun.

It would be incredibly hard, if not impossible, to get people to rally around shotgun restrictions, and characterizing a shotgun as an “assault-something” would further push the “assault weapon” debate toward meaninglessness. The attack couldn’t be blamed on lax gun laws this time either. It happened in Maryland, a veritable hellhole for gun owners.

This made the Capital Gazette shooting tactically unsound for anti-gun messaging. They would have to either call for laws stricter than Maryland’s (good luck), or claim that existing laws would suffice if enforced.

[Related: Suspected Capital Gazette shooter used legally purchased weapon]

Maryland has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, and some of the most frequently enforced. Yet they could do nothing to stop a determined criminal, something even some Maryland politicians have recognized . Dereck E. Davis, a Prince George’s County Democrat was quoted as saying: “If someone is intent on doing something like the [Capital Gazette shooting], maybe we can’t prevent it. But that doesn’t mean we don’t keep trying.”

That’s the state of mind gun control advocates are in at this point. The question isn’t one of preventing massacres or saving lives, it’s simply “doing something” in order to generate points around which to rattle sabres and exchange virtue signals. “Something,” at this point, generally floats between due-process-be-damned “gun violence restraining orders” and ineffective, feature-specific weapons laws targeting “assault weapons,” “bump stocks,” “ steak knives ,” etc.

This incessant “trying” on the part of the anti-gun crowd can’t be shown to have significant impacts on violence in our country, but it can be shown to exacerbate already rampant over-criminalization and ruin people's lives. We have to remember that every new law comes with a price. No matter what the stated purpose behind a law, if it makes simple possession of an object illegal, otherwise innocent people are going to be caught up and have their lives torn apart. This deepens the gap between police and the communities they work in, something progressives (the primary source of anti-gun policy) famously claim to be concerned with.

So why, then, when drug possession laws can be shown to have wreaked havoc on the very poor communities progressives claim to be the guardians of, would making and enforcing analogous laws in the weapons context be any better? Stricter gun laws simply add yet another thing to the list of contraband for police to scan communities for, jailing anyone out of compliance. This enforcement would happen, mind you, in already crime-fraught neighborhoods with the most police presence. New criminal laws are enforced first and most aggressively against the disadvantaged, and gun law is no exception. The result means the people who live with the realest need for effective self-defense are simultaneously stripped of defensive means and exposed to additional hazards. It is another profound inconsistency atop the pile we call modern progressive thought, and it helps nobody, despite seemingly limitless “trying” to help.

The reality is, as even some anti-gunners recognize, some things simply can’t be prevented. So when horrible tragedies happen in the future, even if the whole country caves and adopts gun control as strict as Maryland’s, don’t expect solutions from the gun control crowd. History and experience has taught us what to expect from them: either repetition when they haven’t gotten their way, or silence when they have.

The gun control crowd’s silence after the Capital Gazette shooting should be instructive. The issue for these people is not saving lives, but winning carefully-planned political battles.

Matthew Larosiere is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He holds a J.D. and LL.M. in taxation from the University of Alabama School of Law and is licensed to practice law in Florida. He is also a Young Voices advocate.