One of the biggest issues with creating laws to combat mass shootings is that it’s simply not needed. We have plenty of laws on the books already that can allow us to thwart mass shooters before they can hurt anyone. We also know that there’s absolutely no law on the books that will really stop a determined bad actor from getting guns.

Recently, the ATF made an arrest that may well suggest both of those points as absolutely correct.

A South Carolina student was arrested and accused of illegally possessing 90 weapons, including numerous assault rifles, authorities said.

Edward Daniel Kimpton Jr., 25, was charged Tuesday with wire fraud, mail fraud and illegal possession of machine guns, The Columbia State reported.

Kimpton was arrested Friday after an 18-month investigation by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Secret Service. He’s a Midlands Technical College student, officials confirmed.

It seems Kimpton had a neat little scam going. He’d buy the guns online, then have the guns shipped to various FFL holders all over the state. Then he’d go and pick them up, only to then challenge the purchases with his credit card company, saying he never got the stuff.

The same stuff he had already taken possession of. That means all those guns were basically stolen.

However, since he also didn’t actually pay for any of the equipment, he was able to amass quite the arsenal.

Federal agents searched Kimpton’s house and storage unit and found 90 weapons, 23,763 bullets, body armor, tactical clothing, gas masks, and five bump stocks, which are used to change regular assault rifles into automatic weapons.

OK, that last bit is a little stupid, but it’s the AP. It’s not like they really understand guns or how bump stocks actually work.

And it’s only a few hundred rounds per weapon, though that’s not particularly relevant.

What is relevant, however, was some research that Klimpton conducted.

During the investigation, authorities discovered that Kimpton researched content on South Carolina mass shooters in Charleston in 2015 and Florence in 2018. He also made online searches for instructions on how to use bump stocks, the complaint said.

This suggests that he planned on using these weapons in some kind of a mass shooting. In fact, he was looking at local shootings, which means he wasn’t interested in how Las Vegas was carried out, probably because that wouldn’t be something he could replicate.

Look, those determined to commit evil deeds will do whatever they can to secure weapons for their evil deeds. I don’t know for sure Kimpton is one of those people, someone determined to carry out evil at the end of a gun, but the evidence certainly looks that way from this point of view. If so, it’s important to remember that he was stopped.

As so many other potential mass shooters have been.

Of course, I’m trying to figure out how a 25-year-old was able to dispute that many charges on his credit card and the card company not think anything was fishy before he’d managed to get 90 freaking guns.

Regardless, Kimper is in jail with no bond set. Sounds like the judge is worried about Kimper should he get out of jail.

I’d say that might not be a bad thing.