Bad guys do bad things. It’s kind of part of the job description.

The purpose of the police is to catch the bad guys. Hopefully, they can do it before the bad guys hurt anyone, but they can’t always. If not, they try to catch them before they can hurt anyone else. That’s part of the good guys’ job description.

In King County, Washington–which is just outside Tacoma–the good guys recently made an interesting bust.

At a Covington house on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2019, the ATF Violent Crimes Task Force (which includes the King County Sheriff’s Office) arrested a 39-year old man – and multi-time convicted felon – who is suspected of illegally selling stolen firearms taken in a burglary of a Tacoma gun store in August.

Police say that 24 handguns were stolen in the burglary, one of which was found in a search of the Covington residence where the arrest took place.

In addition to that pistol, 13 other weapons were seized – including assault-style rifles and pistols.

Besides the guns, police found meth, heroin, Xanax, body armor, and more than $7,000 in cash.

Perhaps that was to pay the tax for guns he might have stolen in Tacoma? (Allegedly)

As Cam has reported, the city of Tacoma just kicked of a tax scheme officials claim will help curb the growing gun violence within the city. However, please tell me how that tax impacts someone like this man who reportedly stole 24 firearms and has possession of 13 others when he was arrested?

The idea behind the tax is laughable if for no other reason than someone actually thinks a tax will somehow impact criminals in any meaningful way. I mean, I suppose it raises the cost for those who use straw buyers or something to get guns, but not appreciably. It does nothing to impact those who purchase stolen weapons.

But you know who will pay this for every gun purchase in the city?

That’s right. The law-abiding gun owners who aren’t a problem and never have been. They’ll be stuck paying the tax or, in the case of poor people, potentially not being able to buy a gun at all.

Of course, I suspect that’s a feature, not a bug for the city leaders there.

What we won’t see, though, is any decrease in crime that actually related to this nonsense. Criminals are going to steal guns or obtain them however they previously would. They’ll keep doing it because that’s what they do, and they’ll keep committing crimes because that’s still part of what they do.

After all, a man who got his hands on meth, Xanax, and heroin might–just might–be able to get his hands on firearms easily enough regardless of what draconian rules you put in place.

If you want to protect your community from people like that, you only have one choice. You need as many armed citizens as possible, allow them to create a certain herd immunity against crime.

Do that and the problems sort of take care of themselves.

What Tacoma is doing is the opposite of that.