According to some anti-gunners, we need a “ghost gun” ban because these firearms show up at crime scenes. Apparently, if you ban “ghost guns,” criminals will stop making them. I guess it’s because criminals are generally so law-abiding.

In New Jersey, they did just that. They passed a “ghost gun” ban in an effort to combat criminals being able to get their hands on such firearms.

Clearly, it didn’t work worth a damn.

Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law in 2018 banning so-called ghost guns. These are weapons that are not registered, are sold without background checks and do not have serial numbers, making them difficult to trace. They’re often sold in do-it-yourself kits.

On Thursday, Attorney General Gurbir Grewal announced 35 indictments for illegal gun trafficking and/or possession of illicit weapons. Notably, the haul included 10 ghost guns. Grewal said, “Assault rifles have long been a weapon of choice for gangs and drug dealers, and more recently there has been an alarming increase in untraceable ghost guns, which often are seized by police after they have been used in a shooting.” Col. Patrick Callahan, Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, underlined the issue regarding ghost guns. He said, “We will continue to work with our partners to combat not only the trafficking of illegal weapons, but to also disrupt the assembly and sale of ghost guns both in New Jersey and across the country.”

(Emphasis added.)

So, despite all the gun control on the books in New Jersey, they found tons of illegal weapons, including 10 already banned “ghost guns?” Shocking, right? The bad guys are generally so good about obeying the laws, aren’t they?

Oh, wait, they’re not. That’s why they’re criminals.

I mean, if they were really going to obey the laws, they wouldn’t have committed any of the other crimes they commit on any given day, much less violating the gun laws.

What’s more, there’s absolutely no way to prevent the spread of “ghost guns” at this point in time. After all, 3D printers are a thing and the files for those have already been on the internet. People have them and you’re not going to make them go away no matter what laws you pass. People will still have them, and if they have those files, they have the means to build so-called ghost guns.

It really is proof that if you make something illegal, all you do is make it so only criminals will do a given thing.

You never needed to worry about the good guys who built firearms in their backyard. They were never going to hurt a soul with them unless that soul somehow threatened another’s life. They don’t represent a threat to good public order and never have. What’s more, they never will.

Yet New Jersey continues to treat them like they’re the criminals.

“Ghost gun” bans don’t work. They don’t work because while those who support them think you can ban something into extinction, so long as someone has the knowledge and someone else wants it, nothing will ever be banned into oblivion.