Buying a gun in Illinois is no trivial task. While most people in most states have to jump through the federal hoops to pick up a new handgun, rifle, or shotgun, folks in the Land of Lincoln have to get a special ID card before they can buy one.

This, we’re told, is to prevent criminals from getting guns…which is what the same people told us about requiring NICS checks.

Yet while it stops some from trying to buy a gun–again, much like NICS does–it doesn’t actually stop them from getting guns.

Not when they’re willing to do stuff like this

Police in O’Fallon, Illinois, and St. Peters are comparing cases after would-be thieves looking for guns rammed vehicles into Academy Sports + Outdoors stores in those cities before dawn Wednesday.

The burglars tried breaking into gun cases but failed. They ran off.

The first crime happened shortly before 4:30 a.m. at the Academy Sports in O’Fallon, said O’Fallon police Sgt. William Barlock. Then, about 5:50 a.m., a nearly identical crime unfolded in St. Peters, about 45 miles from the Metro East store.

No one has been arrested.

A silver Hyundai drove through the front of the St. Peters store at 5214 I-70 North Outer Road. Two people jumped out of the car and headed straight for the gun case, said St. Peters police Sgt. Melissa Doss.

…

St. Peters later released surveillance video of the incident that showed four men running into the entrance of the store and two of them shooting handguns at the gun cases.

Now, fortunately, it seems neither of these attempted robberies was successful, but a lot of similar cases are. People gain access to the store and then bust into the cases, stealing firearms that are then sold on the black market, thus bypassing anything like a FOID requirement.

So, I have to ask lawmakers in Illinois, just what laws do they have in place to prevent that?

I mean, breaking into a store and stealing stuff is already a crime, so clearly that didn’t do the trick, so what else?

The answer, of course, is nothing.

Criminals have all day to try and figure out ways around whatever laws you put in place and sometimes, they’ll be successful at it.

In fact, the current gun laws in Illinois are likely why these attempted thefts happened. I’m not saying we should allow bad guys to buy guns necessarily, but I will note that every regulation you put in place comes with consequences. In this case, it’s two gun stores that need to repair walls because bad guys busted into them with a freaking car.

So what you need to try and do with each law is think of those consequences, then ask whether or not the law does enough to warrant those. In Illinois’s case, I don’t believe that they do.

After all, look at a typical weekend in Chicago. If those laws did anything, I doubt we’d see any of the lawlessness we see there week after week.