Gun control advocates like to blame lawful gun dealers and gun manufacturers for the violent crime that plagues the streets of many communities. In their minds, the issue is that gun dealers aren't making sufficiently sure that the person buying the gun is the one who will keep it, even though gun dealers decline sales on their own because they suspect something hinky is going on all the time.

They also tend to favor gun rationing schemes to cut down on straw buys, where someone with a clean background check buys a gun for someone who can't lawfully own one.

In Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia woman recently admitted to a number of straw purchases. These are the kinds of thing that gun stores get blamed for, but in this story, we can see a few things.

 A Philadelphia woman has admitted to her role in a gun trafficking ring that operated across multiple Pennsylvania counties.

This organization, which involved Aja Marie Morris, her boyfriend, Kenneth Darien Lyles III, and another individual, Antwion D. Lofton, illegally purchased and transferred more than 40 firearms between 2020 and 2023, according to The Mercury.

Morris pleaded guilty to charges including corrupt organizations, dealing in illegal proceeds, making false statements on federal firearms purchase forms, and conspiracy. 

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Authorities said they used "straw purchase" tactics, where individuals with clean backgrounds purchase firearms on behalf of others who are ineligible to do so, such as convicted felons, domestic violence offenders, and the mentally ill.

Now, I've covered a fair number of cases where straw buyers were convicted, and while I can't say that this is the most straw buys made by one person, I can say this is far above the average from what I've seen.

Yet this is still just 40 guns over a span of four years. A whopping 10 guns per year.

In Philadelphia.

This is a city with a rampant violent crime problem, and there's been a keen focus on gun stores that they blame for straw buys, yet this was just 10 firearms per year. That's a drop in the bucket.

Of course, this corresponds to what we know about how criminals get guns throughout the nation. Yes, straw buys happen, but they account for a fairly small percentage of the guns that end up in criminal hands. This has been the case for decades now.

So why the focus on straw buys?

The answer is easy. Anti-gunners don't actually care that much about black-market gun sales. What they care about is making it harder for people like you and me to buy firearms in the first place.

The most charitable interpretation of this is the belief that if we can't get guns, then criminals can't steal guns from us, thus cutting off their supply of firearms as well.

I'm not that charitable, though. Not today, anyway, when we saw someone convicted of violating federal gun laws get a pardon simply because of who his daddy is and they remain silent as of when I write this. No, I'm not charitable right now.

Regardless of their reasons, though, the truth is that what they want violates the Second Amendment, so there's no reason for us to play their game.