What people term as unserialized guns is a very broad thing. It includes homemade firearms but also includes guns where the serial has been obliterated.

It doesn’t matter, though, because Maryland still wants to ban them.

In fact, a committee will be hearing a bill seeking to do just that.

Round two of testimony kicks off Wednesday over changing the definition of “firearm” in Maryland, which would ultimately ban ghost guns.

“We’re going to find ways to keep kids safe and we’re going to make intelligent decisions about how to do that,” said Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy.

He says in the past couple of years, investigators have gone from seizing 14 or 15 ghost guns a year to upwards of 70.

…

Another hearing is set for Wednesday in the Senate for its version of the bill.

It’s still in the early stages of the process, however, McCarthy is confident it will pass.

Oh, I think it’ll pass, too.

What I don’t think, though, is that it’ll do any good.

You see, Baltimore has had a sky-high crime problem long before the rise of the 3D printer or the popularity of Polymer80. So-called ghost guns were never really needed for there to be a problem.

While police report seeing more of these guns, what they’re not able to do is definitively link the availability of these weapons to an increase in crime or a decrease in arrests for these kinds of offenses.

That’s because these unserialized guns are filling a perceived need by the criminal underclass throughout Maryland. Were these individuals not getting these kinds of weapons, they’d be getting some other firearm.

See, they’re criminals. They’re not overly picky about what kind of guns they get.

“But these are harder to trace!”

You know what? Stolen guns can be traced, but it doesn’t do any good. I mean, if you steal my gun and it gets recovered at the scene of a crime, what good does it being traced to me do? Especially if the gun was reported stolen in the first place?

Criminals will seek out a gun to fill the void, assuming there’s much of a void, to begin with. We know this because places with bans on unserialized guns are still having the exact same issues they had before such bans were passed.

Why, it’s almost like the bans accomplished nothing at all.

Shocking, I know, but here we are.

I have no doubt Maryland will pass such a measure. I also have no doubt we’ll still be talking about violent crime in Maryland years on down the road. As noted, that’s because these laws don’t actually do anything to the criminals who represent the problem.

What it will do, though, is impact those in Maryland who like to make their own guns as a hobby. They don’t represent a threat to anyone, yet they’ll be stopped from doing something they’ve been doing for a while now, all because of the actions of people to who the ban won’t do anything to.

Yeah, because that makes perfect sense.