South Carolina Drug Bust Highlights Source of Criminal Guns

Gun control advocates love to tout violent crime rates, homicide rates, or “gun death” rates, or whatever other rates best help them advance their agenda. They argue that criminals getting guns is the problem and that the solution is to make it harder for non-criminals to get guns. They say they don’t want to prevent us from having guns completely, only to make it hard enough that bad guys can’t get them.

Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense, but that’s gun control in a nutshell.

But that’s never really worked. Criminals still get guns, and they’ll continue to get guns. How?

Well, a recent arrest for fentanyl in South Carolina provides what we in the biz like to call “a clue.”

Ashley Nicole Sillsbury, 38, of Effingham, was charged with trafficking fentanyl, trafficking cocaine, possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, possession of a weapon during a violent crime, possession of a stolen firearm. Christopher Shane Tiller, 39, also of Effingham, faces the same charges in addition to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Florence County deputies on Wednesday conducted a search warrant in the 1700 block of Singletary Road in Effingham, the sheriff’s office said. The search yielded stolen guns, stolen property and money. Investigators also seized 4.7 grams of methamphetamine, 81.6 grams of fentanyl and 26.9 grams of cocaine.

The duo had eight guns in total, all of which appear to have been stolen from lawful gun owners.

Now, based on reports from the Department of Justice, that’s where criminals generally get their guns. They either steal them or they buy a stolen gun on the black market.

Gun control doesn’t work because it can’t really impact the supply of stolen guns. Not at this point, especially, but as we’ve seen over in Europe, enterprising criminals still find a way to get guns.

Here, though, they don’t have to be that enterprising because there are so many guns in circulation in criminal hands that there’s a massive supply, and they’ll just steal more as the opportunity arises.

And drug dealers have been known to accept guns as payment for drugs, so they’re not running low on a firearm supply.

How would gun control prevent these two from (allegedly) having guns? These weren’t bought lawfully. They didn’t buy them from some unsuspecting guy trying to sell off some excess pieces from his collection to help pay for Christmas. They didn’t follow the laws on the books and get firearms.

No, they reportedly got them because someone, somewhere stole them.

That’s why gun control is never going to work. That’s why it’s not a viable strategy going forward. That’s part of why I will oppose it until my dying breath.

You cannot prohibit the lawful to any degree that it will stop criminals from doing what you prohibited. It’s not physically possible. All you do is make it so the lawful cannot defend themselves from either the tyrant or the thug. The criminal will just find another supply and go on about their criminal lives.

One would hope that someone on that side of things would finally understand this, but I’m not betting money on it.