When gun violence continues to be as much a part of the landscape as Daiquiri shops and potholes, it’s clear we need to be trying something beyond press conferences and promises.  Yet, paradoxically, the city seems to be avoiding the question that could get us to the heart of this bloody epidemic: How do we stop everyone and their granddaughter from getting a gun in the first place?

Studies have shown, unsurprisingly, that something as simple as universal background checks can drastically lower gun violence. In a 2009 study that used data from 54 U.S. cities, for example, researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health studied the impact of gun laws on gun trafficking within a state. Their conclusion: strong gun dealer oversight and background checks for private sales of guns can substantially reduce gun trafficking within a state.

But in New Orleans, efforts at gun control have steered almost entirely clear of limiting who gets guns and how. Instead, initiatives focus on damage control after another person is already lying under familiar police tape. Indifferent as to how the shooter got his gun, media reports focus instead on the latest crime prevention initiatives that might save us from the next drive-by. New programs like Solutions Not Shootings are doing good work with community-based organizations to try to minimize retaliatory violence. But its efforts still remain largely after-the-fact. As organizer Norris Henderson recently told Da Paper: “It's not about who did it. It's about stopping the next one from happening.”

But why is stopping the next one from happening the best we can do when we’re facing violence of epidemic proportions? Why, instead, are gun rights expanding through laws like a recent Jindal-approved measure that allows people to carry guns in church. When it comes to keeping guns out of the mitts of people who will use them against their fellow human, it appears on the surface that the city’s hands are tied.

Turns out, in one big way, they are.

Louisiana is one of 42 states to pass a law, RS 40, section 1796, that prohibits any political subdivision from passing an ordinance or regulation concerning the sale, purchase, or ownership of guns that’s more restrictive than state law. This means that New Orleans can’t pass any ordinances requiring more background checks than the federal Brady Act, which mandates checks only for federally licensed dealers. As a result, it’s open-season for most dealers at the regularly scheduled and robust gun shows in New Orleans and its surrounding suburbs, which are full of private sellers happily (and legally) selling away guns to anyone who can pay.

Louisiana was one of the first states to adopt the preemption law in 1985, with the rationale that uniformity protects the interest of gun owners. It ensures, for example, that a gun owner from Mamou heading into New Orleans for the weekend, shotgun in tow, won’t be blindsided by the city’s potentially unfamiliar gun laws and end up with a fine.

But while law-abiding gun owners in Louisiana have legitimate concerns about avoiding fines, New Orleanians remain worried about their toddlers getting shot in drive-bys. With New Orleans’ homicide rate at ten times the national average, gun laws that may make sense for the rest of the state don’t work so well for us.

In a state where 45 percent of the public is armed, it’s probably safe to surmise that more than half of Lousianans support the NRA and want to retain the right to arm themselves. But with that high ownership rate, Louisiana racked up the highest gun-death rate in the country, Timothy Egan reported in the New York Times. With statistics like these, and the state’s largest city calling for the National Guard, perhaps Louisiana’s gun owners should shift their priorities slightly.

Even if Landrieu decided to enact a local ordinance demanding, say, more background checks, he, like the legislators who have tried it in other states, can bet he’ll be shot down swiftly in court.

Others have tried. When Cleveland challenged state preemption laws in 2010, the Ohio Supreme Court backed the NRA and the state, holding that the preemption law doesn’t infringe on the concept of home rule -  the ability of cities to govern themselves. Rather, the court held, uniformity of law must trump home rule to protect the “fundamental right” to bear arms.

“If you believe in home rule and local government, why are [legislators]  making this crazy exemption?” says Brian Malte, director of legislation for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

But most legislators, especially Southern legislators, are no doubt cowed into submission by the gun lobby before ever thinking of standing up to preemption laws. “Everyone thinks it would be political suicide to mention gun control laws,” says Malte. But in reality, he says, the NRA doesn’t actually spend that much in most  elections, they just talk a big game. “ The NRA says every year, ‘We’re going to spend 15 million dollars on the election’ and the press reports it. We go back after the election and see only 2 or 3 million dollars.”

So, in the country’s murder capital, our options for limiting access to the weapons used in most of the killings are 1) hoping community response initiatives persuade kids that buying or shooting guns isn’t cool, 2) trying the National Guard thing again, or 3) asking state politicians to defy the NRA and their voting bloc to plead with the state legislature to realize that what works for Mamou is killing New Orleans. Since we’ve already tried the first two, the third option seems like our best option at the moment. It might seem about as possible as convincing a Yat to go vegetarian, but unfortunately we’re desperate here.

The opinions contained in this column belong to Annika Mengisen alone, and do not represent the views of the NOLA Defender Editorial Board.