The state of New Jersey has a lot of gun control. In fact, it’s one of the most gun controlled states in the country. Like California and Illinois, it often seems like the state has never heard a gun control proposal it didn’t like.

Yet despite all that gun control, New Jersey has a problem with so-called gun violence.

Recently a couple of people were arrested and a couple of guns recovered in the gun control state.

Jersey City police responding the Booker T. Washington housing complex at 6:20 p.m. on a complaint of drug dealing approached a 17-year-old boy who then fled, Jersey City spokeswoman Kimberly Wallace-Scalcione said.

Police quickly apprehended the teen, who was charged with possession of a firearm by a minor, possession of prohibited weapon, unlawful possession of a handgun, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and resisting arrest.

At 11:40 p.m., police arrested 19-year-old Darby Shirden in the area of Fulton and Rose avenues after he fled from police, said Wallace-Scalcione, who noted that the handgun Shirden discarded during the chase was recovered.

So we have two people, both too young to purchase a handgun, in possession of handguns in one of the most gun controlled states in the nation.

I mean, it’s almost like gun control doesn’t work or something.

New Jersey gun control voices would likely chime out about how this is all the fault of other states that don’t have tight gun control laws. Governor Phil Murphy threatened to shame those states in an effort to push them to do what he wanted them to.

Obviously, I don’t buy that.

First, these two couldn’t have purchased their guns anywhere legally. They’re both under the age of 21. That’s the federally mandated age limit for purchasing a firearm. That means these guns were likely black market guns. I hate to break it to you, but black market guns are usually stolen guns, meaning no amount of gun control is going to stop the flow of guns there.

Yet will anyone look at this and recognize that maybe, just maybe, there are bigger problems at play than access to guns, especially since these people–one not even old enough to vote–are walking around with guns while the state heavily restricts everyone else from lawfully doing so?

The criminals aren’t obeying those laws, so tell me again how shall issue laws are enabling criminals? Tell me again how constitutional carry doesn’t help the law-abiding citizens?

I don’t care how many times I say it; some simply won’t get it. The criminals will not obey the gun laws laid down at any level of government. As a result, only the law-abiding citizens who may have been threatened by these two would be disarmed. They were set to be oppressed by the tyranny of the thug, a real problem in so many of our American cities governed by gun control enthusiasts; people who often have private security for themselves and their families.

New Jersey’s gun control laws failed, just as all gun control laws fail. It’s too bad they’ll never acknowledge that.