Gun trafficking is held up as a significant problem. People buy firearms from a pro-Second Amendment state and typically transport them for sale to criminals in an anti-Second Amendment state.

It is, unfortunately, the natural order of things.

Now, five people have been arrested for trafficking more than 300 guns from Georgia to Philadelphia.

Hundreds of guns bought in Georgia have been seized in Pennsylvania in a major gun trafficking bust. ATF agents say five Georgians now face charges.

“Firearms trafficking is the movement of firearms from the legal to illegal marketplace,” said ATF Agent Matthew Varisco.

Federal authorities say about 300 guns that were bought in 2 dozen sporting goods stores and gun shows across Georgia were transported to Philadelphia to be sold on the streets.

“Firearms illegally trafficked to Philadelphia made available on the black market to people who can’t lawfully purchase guns,” said Jennifer Arbittier Williams, US Attorney with the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Unpossible. I have it on good authority that criminals prefer “ghost guns” over trafficked firearms. If that’s the case, how can there be much of a market for these weapons, much less one that makes them worth such a drive?

Anyway, moving on…

ATF agents say an Atlanta rapper, Frederick Norman, known as Slowkey Fred, personally bought many of those guns.They say he worked with Brianna Walker also from Atlanta and 3 men from Villa Rica, Charles O’Bannon, Stephen Norman, and Devin Church.  These 5 along with 6 others from Philadelphia, who agents say were part of the operation, sold the guns on the black market for more than 100-thousand dollars.

It should be noted that Norman is such a successful rapper that he has no Wikipedia entry and Spotify shows he’s got a whopping 258 monthly listeners.

Clearly, his rap career was taking off.

That said, let’s provide a little context. Selling 300 guns for more than $100,000 means selling each for $333.33. That’s not a whole lot for a firearm, so it remains to be seen how much they actually made in profit. If they sold a bunch of Hi-Points, they made more than if they sold Glocks.

There’s no way they sold H&Ks for around that price.

Anyway, though, looking at this story–a story that’s gotten a fair bit of media attention–I can’t help but wonder just how much of an issue are 300 firearms in Philadelphia.

With just under 1.6 million people, Philadelphia is unlikely to notice 300 firearms showing up on their streets. While I don’t feel comfortable calling it statistical noise, most of that is because no one knows how many weapons are already in criminal hands in Philly.

Yet it probably doesn’t do much.

But these 300 firearms are going to be held up as some kind of proof that we need to do something about trafficking. Someone is going to claim this is ample evidence new gun control laws are needed when it’s none of that.

These are a handful of people who took advantage of tougher laws in one place over another and tried to profit off of it. You’re not about to stop it. The best you can do is change the point of origin to outside of the country.