In the wake of the most recent U.S. mass shootings in Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs, Texas, anti-gun proponents on the Left have renewed their calls for stricter gun control measures. But a new study shows that such legislation could do little to curb gun violence.

According to a yearlong study by The Trace, a liberal gun control advocacy group, and more than a dozen NBC local television stations, the thing that is “fueling violent crime across America” is not would-be shooters purchasing weapons legally or through so-called “loopholes.” It is those same criminals stealing weapons from law-abiding gun owners, which, in some cases, criminals use to commit violent acts.

The study found that between 2010 and 2016, law enforcement agencies recovered 23,000 stolen firearms. The majority of those 23,000 weapons, the study indicated, were later involved in violent acts of crime. But the number of firearms that were actually stolen and used to commit violent acts is much smaller than the number of firearms stolen and that could potentially still be used to carry out violent acts.

The study found that in the last decade, 2 million firearms were reported stolen in the U.S. Researchers obtained the data from “police records from hundreds of jurisdictions.” The records include firearms that were stolen in “more than 1,500 carjackings and kidnappings, armed robberies at stores and banks, sexual assaults and murders, and other violent acts committed in cities from coast to coast.”

The Trace’s report notes that after the weapons are stolen, they are then “funneled into an underground market where background checks would never apply” — no matter how much Democrats in Congress push for more background checks to be included in federal legislation.

The latest findings on the high number of firearms thefts shoot a hole straight through Democrats’ narrative that it is too easy to purchase guns legally. Indeed, the research from a self-described gun control advocacy group suggests the problem is not so much what lawmakers on the Left want constituents to believe.

Rather, it is what they seemingly don’t want you to acknowledge — that those who carry out violent acts with firearms will do so no matter the laws on the books. They are criminals by their very nature.

Thus, if they cannot legally purchase a gun, they will simply find a way to illegally purchase a weapon, or just steal a firearm in the so-called underground market.