Following the tragedy in Charleston, S.C., it’s prudent to ask: Would tougher gun regulations have prevented this unimaginable horror?

It’s the same question we ask every time something of this magnitude happens, and the list of tragic events is growing longer. Sandy Hook, Aurora, Virginia Tech, Columbine. Those are the big ones we remember, but there have been others. Some media reports peg the number at 62 over the last 30 years.

It’s reasonable to assume that a world without guns would be less violent. But we don’t live in a  world without guns — and we never will. Regardless of your views on gun control, there’s no getting around the Second Amendment. Guns always have been, and always will be, part of our country.

I’m a gun owner. I grew up with guns and have enjoyed shooting ever since getting my first .22 rifle. I hunt with my guns, but that’s not the only reason I own them. I also have them in my house as a security measure.

But even for the most ardent supporter of gun rights, it’s sometimes difficult to form a logical defense when those rights are challenged following a mass shooting. We simply come back to: it’s the Second Amendment. We don’t have much else beyond that. As long as the Bill of Rights means something in this country, that position will be enough.

But that doesn’t mean reasonable restrictions on gun ownership don’t make sense. Already, courts have decided that the Second Amendment isn’t a blanket protection to own any type of gun. Fully automatic firearms are more heavily regulated than shotguns. Anyone  wanting to own a fully automatic weapon must register with the federal government. Most gun owners see that as a reasonable measure.

So would our country benefit from tougher regulations on all types of guns? Would we be safer? Probably. If all gun owners were required to attend a training session, there would probably be fewer gun accidents.

If all guns had some type of device that only allowed them to be fired by their owners, there would be less gun violence because criminals, in theory, wouldn’t be able to use stolen firearms.

If those with mental illness were kept from purchasing firearms, there would probably be fewer fatal shooting incidents.

The list of so-called “common sense” regulations is long, and most would likely reduce gun violence. But none of them would have prevented the Charleston shooter from obtaining a firearm and using it.

They would not have prevented many of the mass shootings in this country.

So where does that leave us? The only logical approach, aside from banning all firearms and nullifying the Second Amendment, is to deal with the underlying cancer that is the root of the kind of violence Charleston witnessed. The suspect, by all accounts, was a racist and targeted the church because of its importance to the black community there.

It was that evil that caused these senseless murders. The gun was merely the instrument he used to carry out the violence. Sure, he probably couldn’t have killed nine if he was armed with a knife instead of a gun. But again, our only recourse is to address the underlying evil.

Franklin Graham said it best on his Facebook page: “… all of the laws in the world can’t change the human heart — only God can do that.”