Massachusetts has some of the toughest gun control laws in the nation, a fact the state is quite proud of. In fact, only California may surpass Massachusetts as a purveyor of the bad ideas that constitute the American gun control movement.

However, Massachusetts’ gun control policies aren’t working.

Oh, gun control advocates claim they are, but there’s plenty of reason to believe that’s not the case by any stretch of the imagination. For example, despite the plethora of gun control regulations on the books–regulations like requiring a permit prior to buying a gun and universal background checks, to name two–a 14-year-old was recently found with a firearm on his person.

A 14-year-old boy is the latest suspect found with a weapon in Boston, with police arresting the gun-toting teen at a Dorchester playground in what one top gang expert says is a “frightening” find.

Boston Police report they have confiscated 550 guns this year — the latest at the Trotter School Playground on Friday night. The teen is accused of carrying a SCCY CPX-1 semiautomatic pistol, loaded with four rounds of live ammunition.

“It’s great that that gun was taken off the street and out of the hand of that young teenager,” said Emmett Folgert, executive director of the Dorchester Youth Collaborative. “It’s tragic when anybody that young is carrying a gun.”

But Folgert added: “Nothing good is going to happen from it, it just changes everything and is frightening.”

Folgert, who runs the community-based agency that serves high- and proven-risk teens in Dorchester, said he spoke with multiple kids in the program about how a 14-year-old could get his hands on a gun and was told that it often happens if the teenager is in a gang or if an older kid gives him one so that older kid doesn’t get caught with it.

Nah. Can’t be. I have it on excellent authority that gun control works, which means that teenagers can’t hand any guns to kids unless that child has a permit and undergoes a criminal background check first.

Right?

Oh, wait, that’s not how it works, is it? Criminals such as gang members don’t follow the law, and they never have, which means they also ignore gun control laws. How else would a 14-year-old get his hands on a gun?

Massachusetts has a ton of laws on the books that are supposed to stop things like this, but they don’t do anything. They get in the way of law-abiding citizens who want to buy or sell a firearm and do nothing at all to stop the criminals who engage in the illegal trade of not just guns but anything else that can be bought, sold, or stolen.

The sooner people come to understand that and focus on that aspect rather than treating law-abiding gun owners as the problem, the sooner the people of Massachusetts can address the real issue. Not that I expect them to ever come to their senses. That’s not the Massachusetts way.