Federal law bars anyone who is a convicted felon from owning a firearm. There’s no differentiation between different kinds of felonies, either. Someone convicted of insider trading is just as barred as a murderer or drug kingpin. No one cares what the felony is, once you’re a felon, no more legal guns for you.

Not that the law stops anyone who wants to break the law again.

Sure, you can find plenty of felons who never touched another firearm as long as they live. They were determined to be law-abiding citizens, and if that meant additional restrictions for them, so be it.

But a lot of them just don’t care. They’re career criminals, and guns are part of their trade.

Take this guy from Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Shawn M. Bacon, 39, was sentenced in U.S. District Court to 60 years in prison followed by 10 years of supervised released for a variety of charges.

It was December 2017 when officers with the Fort Wayne Police Department’s Vice & Narcotics Division, Emergency Services Team and Hazardous Devices Unit served a search warrant at 1728 ½ High St. Police had received a tip that the resident inside had been dealing drugs and had a large supply of firearms and explosive devices, according to a police report.

Before the raid, the resident – Bacon – was taken into custody during a traffic stop outside of his home. He was found with a loaded stolen .38-caliber revolver, the report said.

Inside the home, police found nine handguns and 13 long guns, including one stolen pistol, along with a TASER stun gun and a ballistic bullet resistant vest. Police also found two 6-inch pipe bombs with a green fuse and a 12-in, 64oz “Bubba Keg” also with a green fuse, each described as “working devices,” the report said.

Bacon was already a convicted felon, so the .38 was enough to land him back in prison all on its own. However, Bacon’s a drug dealer. Guns are a requirement for his chosen career path. He deals with unsavory people, and so, of course, he wanted to arm himself.

Then again, he’s an unsavory person, so…

Yet how did a convicted felon end up with more than 20 firearms when the law expressly forbids it? That’s easy. The hint is in the status of the .38. It was stolen.

That suggests that Bacon bought his guns on the black market.

Despite all the gun laws on the books and every law being discussed at this moment at the state and federal level, this career criminal was able to get his hands on firearms. Just because only one was reported as a stolen pistol doesn’t mean the others weren’t. If someone doesn’t report their stolen gun with a serial number, it’s unlikely they’ll show up as stolen guns when a criminal is caught with them.

Additionally, they might have come via straw buys. Again, also illegal.

If you can’t keep guns out of a felon’s hands despite the laws already on the books, why are you trying to restrict guns for law-abiding citizens? What we have is failing to stop anything. Bacon is living proof of that.