Crime is bad.

I know, breaking news, right?

Anyway, we all know it’s a problem. To combat it, many places create gun control laws in an effort to combat that crime. We’ve got laws meant to prevent people from getting guns, drugs, and a host of other things. One place with a lot of those laws is California.

Yet a recent arrest there shows that the DIY spirit is still alive and well in America, even if it’s applied to criminal activities.

A federal grand jury Tuesday charged a San Fernando Valley man with selling a total of nearly 16 pounds of methamphetamine and 89 firearms, including dozens of “ghost guns,” or firearms that lack serial numbers.

Julio Ernesto Lopez-Menendez, 26, of Reseda, was charged in a 13-count indictment with four counts of distribution of methamphetamine, one count of engaging in the business of dealing in firearms without a license, four counts of possession of unregistered firearms, and four counts of possession of firearms not identified by serial numbers, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

…

Some firearms sold were so-called “ghost guns,” named because of their lack of a serial number. Such guns are often assembled from parts purchased separately or in a kit. Because the separate parts do not bear serial numbers, the assembled ghost guns do not bear serial numbers, and they cannot be registered or traced.

Which, of course, can’t be true because California has laws against all of that and we know that criminals obey the law.

Of course, what’s funny to me is that meth is something an individual can supposedly make themselves easily enough and the same can be said of “ghost guns.”

That means these aren’t just regular, garden-variety criminal goods. This here is artisanal crime, baby. This is small-batch meth and lovingly handcrafted “ghost guns.”

Hipster bad guys approve completely.

You’d think all those laws would have prevented this or any other heritage-clad criminal endeavor, but alas, they don’t.

That’s because criminals–be they hipsters or otherwise–don’t follow the law. I know I’ve said this before and I’ll keep saying it because those who demand laws on unserialized firearms don’t get that crime is part of their life. Breaking the law is as natural to most bad guys as breathing is.

But here we are, yet again, stating the obvious when it comes to crime.

If you want to deal with crime, start at the source. Look at high-crime areas and look at how you can prevent people from becoming criminals in the first place. If you do that, you don’t need laws about what kind of guns people can have because a law-abiding citizen can be handed a rocket launcher and so long as they know how NOT to fire it, society is perfectly safe with it in their hands.

Give a violent felon a rock and he can kill someone with it.

Of course, if you’re going to do that, at least make sure it’s a fair-trade, artisanal rock. You don’t want to upset the violent hipster.