One of the most ridiculous refrains I hear from gun control advocates is how we supposedly know that gun control works.

Every study they cite has massive problems, but they still cite them. However, three men in California were arrested for basically making gun control look bad. 

Now, don't get it wrong, those weren't the official charges. However, the actual charges amount to just that.

Three Southern California men who allegedly traveled out of state to purchase pistols and semiautomatic rifles to sell in California without a license were arrested Wednesday on a federal conspiracy charge.

...

Prosecutors allege that from November 2022 to last July, the defendants frequently made short trips to Utah to purchase firearms from licensed dealers. When the defendants bought the firearms, they falsely listed on federal forms that they were Utah residents, court papers allege.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, listing a Utah residence was important because Utah-based licensed firearms dealers generally cannot sell firearms to California residents. To buy the guns anyway, each defendant allegedly obtained either a Utah driver’s license or ID card listing a Utah address. They then used these fraudulently obtained cards to buy guns from dealers, prosecutors allege.

So these three skirted existing state laws, purchased firearms, then traveled back to California to sell firearms without a license, without a background check, or literally anything else required by state or federal law.

But gun control works, right?

It didn't stop any of this. It wasn't even a particularly clever or complicated scheme to get guns and traffic them to California's criminal element. It was the same trick, more or less, that people do to get their kids in a better school district. It's as simple as it gets, and that led to them breaking God only knows how many gun control laws.

But it works, right?

Of course it doesn't work. All it does is, at best, throw up obstacles that criminals have to clear in order to do things like this. It doesn't stop anyone who really wants a gun if they've got the resources.

What the state's laws have done, though, is making harder and harder for the law-abiding Californians who want firearms to get them. They can only buy handguns that are on a particular list, a list that doesn't include most current firearms and has an ever-dwindling number of listees still being made. A lot of the long guns are just flat-out illegal or are really just a shell of their original design, all to conform to the state's laws.

But criminals can still get whatever they want.

So that's why I say these three were arrested for making gun control look bad. That wasn't the charge and that wasn't even really why they were arrested. It's not like they talked smack and drew law enforcement's attention. No, making gun control look bad was just the second-order effect of what they were allegedly doing.

Yet it's still making the state's laws look bad and they were still arrested.

Call it a stretch if you will. I literally couldn't care less. I call it like I see it, and their alleged actions led to their arrest and undermines the entire argument of gun control supposedly working. How could I see it any differently?