The real problem when it comes to crime isn’t the lawfully purchased firearm sitting in your gun safe. It never has been and likely never will be.

The problem is, more often than not, stolen guns.

We know that people steal them from both private residences and gun stores. However, the alleged thieves usually aren’t this young.

Two brothers, ages 14 and 11, were arrested after police said they broke into a Florida gun shop and stole 22 firearms and ammunition.

The juveniles were taken into custody on Wednesday on numerous charges including 22 counts of grand theft of a firearm, one count of armed burglary, one count of criminal mischief, and one count of resisting without violence, the Cape Coral Police Department said at a news conference.

The 14-year-old was also charged with violating his probation. NBC News is not naming the suspects because they are minors.

…

Cape Coral police were alerted around 3 a.m. Wednesday of a burglary in progress at Guns 4 Less. Officers quickly responded and saw the brothers running away “armed with multiple handguns, ammunition, magazines and long guns,” police spokesperson Sgt. Julie Green said.

Apparently, due to the weight of their stolen good, the pair dropped most of the weapons and fled. The 14-year-old kept an AR pistol, but that was it.

It didn’t help.

Of course, this raises all kinds of questions for me. I mean, my daughter is 10, just a year younger than one of these two. She’s more preoccupied with cartoons than having any interest in breaking and entering.

Now, the 14-year-old was already on probation for some offense, so obviously he’s not exactly shaping up to be a model citizen.

However, I’m curious if this was his plan or whether someone pressured the pair into doing this.

After all, some criminals love getting kids to do their dirty work whenever possible, pointing out that the kids can’t be tried as adults. So it wouldn’t shock me if someone got these two to break into the store to try and get guns for them to sell later.

But that’s just speculation on my part.

Then again, it’s also possible that the 14-year-old figured it was a good way to make some money. If he’s already engaged with the criminal culture, he probably could have made a fortune selling guns to adult criminals, at least until someone decided they didn’t want to pay a kid.

Either way, what I hope is that this somehow pushes both of these kids back onto the old straight and narrow path. A history of this kind of nonsense will soon enough destroy both their lives unless they get their heads straight and knock this off.

I’m skeptical, though, because I can’t imagine a lot of parental involvement in their lives. I mean, who lets their kids run around at 3 a.m. in the first place?

Then again, I could be wrong and the parents are doing what they can, but I’m not holding my breath.

Either way, it’s stuff like this that puts guns in criminal hands and we all know it.