We know that criminals don’t just walk into gun stores and plop down money for a firearm, walking out armed. That’s just not how it works and it hasn’t for a very long time at least. Current law forbids those sales and even those who could pass a background check because they just haven’t been caught doing anything still don’t go to the gun store.

TV has them convinced the police can track them down that way.

But that’s not to say criminals never get their guns from gun stores. A couple of 19-year-olds in Kansas have been charged with doing just that.

Arrests have been made in a string of gun store thefts that have struck the Kansas City area in the past week.

Two Kansas men have been charged through criminal complaint in Kansas City, Kansas, on charges related to the alleged firearms thefts.

An additional suspect is also in custody.

Deldrick Bryant, 19, of Kansas City, Kansas, and Benjamin Custis, 19, are charged with two counts of burglary of a licensed firearms dealer.

…

Surveillance videos show that a white Ford pickup was used to breach the businesses by ramming the front doors. On October 18, the pickup truck was spotted in Kansas City, Kansas. When law enforcement officers attempted to make contact, the driver hit a parked car and fled into Kansas City, Missouri, where Kansas City, Missouri, police officers were able to apprehend the occupants in the vehicle.

The ATF searched their homes and found the stolen guns.

It sounds like a pretty open-and-shut case.

But these two brainiacs aren’t the only people robbing gun stores this way. I’ve seen numerous other examples of this happening all over the nation. It’s why some communities have looked at mandating things for gun stores like barriers that will block the front of the buildings from vehicles trying to breach the entrance. It’s also why some want to make gun stores lock up their inventory each night.

I don’t agree with these mandates–though I do think putting the barriers up is a good idea, even if I oppose requiring it–but I can see where the concern comes from.

Gun stores will always be targets for thieves simply because they have guns.

While criminals may be happy to steal firearms from people’s homes, they often can’t be sure guns will be present. They have to get lucky to some degree or another.

But gun stores definitely have guns. I mean, they’re gun stores.

Granted, I’ve been in a gun store without any. It was weird and I haven’t been back since, but that was the exception, not the rule. Most of the time, if you go to a gun store, there will be guns. That makes them attractive to criminals who want, you know, guns.

Smash-and-grab robberies of gun stores don’t require sophistication. This isn’t Oceans Eleven here. It’s low-skill burglary and anyone can pull it off.

And this is one huge way guns enter the black market.

It’s also why the hysteria about gun tracing makes no sense. Any of these guns used in a crime and left at the scene will be traced right back to the gun store they were stolen from.

Anyway, these two are now facing charges and will likely to go prison. The next guys, though, might just get away with it.