We constantly hear gun control supporters talk about how we need to ban guns. This, they tell us, will keep them out of the hands of criminals and it’ll make it far more difficult for them to carry out some of their crimes.

In theory, it sounds good. At least, it does if you don’t know any better.

We’ve spilled a lot of digital ink on all the ways bad guys get guns, of course, but what about those that commit armed robbery without even bothering to get one? Especially when they hold up a pawn shop that has guns?

U.S. District Judge David Counts sentenced 28-year-old Christopher Chase Mojica today to more than four years in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release for stealing firearms from a pawn shop in Odessa and for being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.

On July 23, 2019, Mojica pleaded guilty to one count of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and one count of theft of a firearm from a Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL).

By pleading guilty, Mojica admitted that on April 29, 2019, he walked inside Cash America in Odessa, fired a flare gun at employees, smashed a display case then walked out with five firearms.

So what now? Do we need flare gun control as well?

Of course, we’re not going to see any such thing and for damn good reason. A flare gun is categorized as a safety device. It’s used to signal for help in a variety of circumstances. It’s not generally used as a weapon, though I doubt it wouldn’t cause some pretty nasty injuries if you shot someone with one.

Yet here it is, being used as a weapon.

That’s the thing about the human animal. Anything can be a weapon in the right/wrong hands. You can hand a law-abiding citizen a fully-functional rocket launcher and they won’t hurt a fly with it unless by accident. A violent felon can kill with his bare hands.

They can also steal a pile of guns from a pawn shop with a flare gun, apparently.

Meanwhile, there are those in Texas where this happened who think that the state really needs more gun control. It wouldn’t have stopped Mojica from getting a flare gun. It wouldn’t have stopped him from stealing from five guns that he wasn’t legally allowed to have. None of that would have done a thing.

Again, the bad guys don’t play by our rules. Only the good guys do, and that only for as long as they’re willing. A lot of us are looking at the rules being proposed and trying to decide just when it’s time to cross that line.

For people like Mojica, that line has been long since crossed and he just didn’t care. He got caught, thankfully, but there are plenty of other gun thieves that haven’t been or are back on the streets. Mojica only got four years for his robbery. How many of his colleagues have been caught, arrested, and are back out stealing guns?

Far too many.

How many are using flare guns, though?