Missouri Man Pleads Guilty in Case That, According to Anti-Gunners, Shouldn’t Be Possible

I can’t tell you how often I’m tempted to start a piece with the quote, “Gun control works.”

It’s not because it’s true, obviously, because it’s not. Instead, it’s what we’re told over and over again. When we point out the failures, it never seems to bother anti-gunners, though, because then they try to blame the lawful market, pro-gun states, or a thousand other things. Their laws work, you see, and any failure is because the rest of us won’t trust them.

It’s kind of like how Cuba’s failures of communism are because the capitalists embargoed trade, because communism can’t function without a free market somewhere else, but that’s totally not a failure of the underlying ideas.

Sure, whatever.

I bring up this whole thing, though, because a man in Missouri just pled guilty to federal gun charges that, if gun control works, he shouldn’t have been able to break in the first place.

A Maplewood, Missouri, man on Wednesday admitted to selling nine machine gun conversion devices to an undercover federal agent, according to court records.

Tanario Darden, 23, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to two felony counts involving firearms offenses: transporting prohibited weapons without a license and transferring machine guns.

Prosecutors said Darden used his Instagram account to advertise machine gun conversion devices for sale. The devices, commonly referred to as switches or auto sears, are designed to convert semi-automatic firearms into fully automatic weapons. Under federal law, such conversion devices are classified as machine guns.

The ATF became aware of Darden’s account in 2024, and an undercover agent arranged to buy a switch from him.

Because advertising that you’re selling illegal goods on Instagram is a big-brain move if ever I’ve seen one.

Yet the question is, if gun control works as advertised, how did Darden get switches in the first place? While there do appear to be a few transferable switches out there, there aren’t many considering when the devices were invented. These don’t seem to have been transferable switches, anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

Full-auto switches are illegal at the federal level. You cannot lawfully manufacture them with the appropriate licenses. You cannot sell them except to very particular parties that have the appropriate licenses–and these aren’t your garden-variety Class 3 buyers, either. At no point are the legal in the general market.

So, how did Darden get them if gun control works so well?

There’s no lawful market to traffic from. There are no nearby areas with laxer laws that he could go to get them. Neither he nor anyone else he knew could lawfully manufacture them. There’s nothing, and yet, here we are.

It’s almost like criminals don’t care about the law.

Wild, right? I mean, criminals are normally so law-abiding. I mean, they’re more law-abiding than politicians and Minnesota day care owners, at least. Why would they break the law in order to break the law?

I don’t care how many times I point it out, I’ll keep doing so until these crap-waffle mofos start to understand that the issue isn’t a lack of gun control laws. It’s a lack of self-control on the part of people like Darden and his customers.

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