Gun control, we are told, will keep guns out of the hands of those who aren’t supposed to have them. This is what we keep hearing from those who support such policies. That if we just pass the next law, we can make everyone safer.

However, that’s not what happens. Sure, new guns laws pop up with great fanfare from proponents and the media (but I repeat myself), but then we see pretty much no difference in crime rates. They go up, they go down, but that happens irrespective of the gun laws on the books. Law abiding citizens have still more crap to deal with, and the criminals still get guns.

I can’t imagine just how they get those guns.

Two Connecticut men have been charged with stealing 17 guns during a break-in last month at a Massachusetts gun store, federal prosecutors said in a statement Monday.

Fernando Rivera, 24, and Christian Castro, 29, were each charged Friday with stealing guns from a federal firearms licensee, according to the office of the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, Andrew Lelling.

Both were held without bail pending trial.

…

Rivera and Castro were among several people in two cars who drove from Connecticut through Massachusetts to Vermont and New Hampshire stealing or trying to steal from ATMs along the way, prosecutors said.

You mean criminals might actually steal guns from law-abiding citizens? I’M SHOCKED!!!

I mean, don’t they know that’s illegal? Surely law-abiding criminals wouldn’t steal guns!

Except, of course, they would. They’re criminals. They steal stuff all the time, especially things they can make a lot of money selling. High-end goods like firearms can make them some decent cash on the black market. That’s especially true if you know who to sell them too.

And that’s where these black market guns tend to come from. While some are from straw purchases, most are stolen from law-abiding citizens, the very people who have never represented a threat to anyone except for the criminals.

Over and over again, we warn people that this is what happens, that no matter what laws you put on the books, criminals are going to get guns. They’ll get them because they’re criminals. They’ll steal them from someone, somewhere. Hell, they’ve even stolen them from the police. If they’ll do that, why does anyone think they won’t steal them from anyone else?

The truth of the matter is that guns are always going to be a preferred item as far as loot goes. Criminals will steal as many guns as they possibly can, even if they don’t want to sell them.

Most of the time, though, they want to sell them.

It’s great when the police catch these thieves, of course, but the question you have to ask is just how many are out there that they haven’t caught yet? No doubt, there are plenty still on the streets and more stepping up to commit the same crimes all the time. If you’re going to stop gun thefts, you need to start making the punishment enough that the crime is no longer as attractive.

We can hope, anyway.