Remember when President Obama tried to claim the blood being spilled in Mexico was the result of lax American gun laws? Not only did he completely ignore his own administration’s role in guns going south of the border, but pretends that Mexican drug cartels don’t have access to guns the ordinary American citizen can’t get.

Things like miniguns.

Charged with a litany of gun violations to include possessing and transferring unregistered machine guns and unlawfully exporting firearms to Mexico were Tyler Carlson, 28, of Austin; Michael Fox, 69 of Georgetown; and Tracy Garwood, 62, of Scottsdale. According to court documents, in June 2016, Customs agents inspecting a vehicle crossing into Mexico at Anzalduas, Texas, recovered 15 AK-47 style rifles, four handguns, 4,000 rounds of ammunition and the power supply and feed chute for a Garwood M-134G Minigun. This triggered an investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Homeland Security Investigations that ultimately labeled Carlson as the go-between who worked to smuggle as many as 200 guns across the border to Mexico without a license going back to 2014, paid for in over $270,000 in postal money orders. Prosecutors hold the firearms were obtained by Carlson from Fox, a federal firearms licensee and a former lawman who, with the help of Garwood, also built a number of off-the-books Miniguns for the man. Garwood, who started a Scottsdale-based company specializing in an improved generation of the multi-barreled 7.62mm machine gun in 1999, allegedly told the ATF that a number of M134G rotor housings– considered the receiver of the Minigun– were destroyed, but the parts, controlled items under the National Firearms Act, were recovered in a 2017 search warrant at Fox’s home in Texas with their markings partially obliterated.

Why, it’s almost like gun laws don’t stop people inclined to commit criminal acts.

Hmmmmmmmm. Funny how that shakes out, isn’t it?

Let’s also be clear, here. If the Mexican cartels want miniguns or similar pieces of equipment, they’ll find a seller. Frankly, that’s true of anyone with sufficient money and underworld connections.

Meanwhile, I can’t go out and buy an M134G. They’re tightly controlled and I can’t get one. Nevermind that I’d never shoot the blasted thing anywhere but a gun range. Nevermind that I’m not a threat to anyone with such a weapon in my hands (and not just because I’d miss everything I shot at). Let’s not think about any of that.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You can give a law-abiding man a bazooka and he wouldn’t hurt a fly, but the violent felon will still kill if he has nothing but his bare hands.

And that’s why gun laws don’t work. The only people they really impact on the law-abiding anyway. These three men stand accused of breaking so many laws it boggles the mind, yet those laws were reportedly insufficient to keep them from allegedly providing arms to the dangerous Mexican cartels.

What will it take for some of these people get it? Gun laws cost good people their lives while ultimately empowering criminals. Period. End of discussion.