Supporters of gun control routinely argue that their preferred policies work. They swear that if we just enact enough regulations, we’ll see an impact on crime statistics.

Never you mind that since the passage of the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban, we saw no other anti-gun regulations on the federal level, but saw violent crime drop year after year, even after the ban sunset.

Still, they’re convinced that gun control is the answer and that it stops criminals from getting guns.

The oldest existing federal law is the National Firearms Act. Passed in 1934, it regulates machine guns and things like suppressors. Then the 1986 machine gun ban rolled around, beefing up the rules around full-auto weapons.

And yet, we’ve got this guy.

An indictment was unsealed in federal court on Wednesday, charging 35-year-old Joshua Allen Lampe, a resident of Eugene, with the illegal possession of two firearms that had been converted into fully-automatic machine guns and a silencer.

Lampe is accused of unlawfully possessing two machine guns and a silencer, violating the National Firearms Act, which prohibits the possession and transfer of certain firearms, including machine guns and silencers, without proper registration.

According to court documents, in August 2022, a search of Lampe’s Eugene residence led investigators to seize numerous firearms, knives, ammunition, firearm accessories and parts, scopes, laser sights, packaging materials, tactical gear, and other armaments.

In December 2022, investigators obtained a warrant to search Lampe’s home for a second time within four months. This search revealed that Lampe had acquired hand tools, a rifle, firearm parts, machine gun switches, a 3D printer used to produce switches, several ghost guns, a silencer, packaging materials, as well as methamphetamine, heroin, and fentanyl pills.

Analysis and testing conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) confirmed that two pistols seized from Lampe’s residence were converted into operative machine guns using switches. The analysis also confirmed the functionality of the seized silencer.

So, gun control works so well that a dude in Oregon–a pretty gun-controlled state, it should be noted–had two machine guns and a suppressor.

Then again, he also had a pile of illegal drugs, too, and there’s no legal market for meth or heroin, so…

Look, at some point, people have to come to understand that criminals are going to break the law. There are too many ways around gun control laws in general right now so trying to regulate firearms out of criminal hands is a losing proposition.

If we can’t keep machine guns out of people’s hands, give up keeping anything else out of criminal hands. It’s just not going to happen. Full-auto is the most controlled type of firearm out there, and here we see how the laws completely fail to prevent bad actors from getting them.

It’s a lost cause, folks. Gun control cannot stop this.

So, it’s time to step back and look at things from a different perspective. It’s time to stop punishing the law-abiding for the actions of the criminals, especially when the new rules won’t actually do anything to those criminals in the first place.

It’s time to look beyond gun control for a change.