When gun control advocates start talking about the need to find laws that keep guns out of criminals hands, but supposedly not interfere with the law-abiding’s ability to buy firearms, I can’t help but laugh. It’s a joke. Anyone with half a brain knows that any new laws that they push through will interfere with the law-abiding’s ability to buy guns.

But the kicker? None of them will actually stop criminals from getting guns.

Take this example from Chicago.

A Chicago gang member faces federal charges for trafficking guns bought off Armslist hundreds of miles away into the city, prosecutors announced last week. Jaiqail Wright allegedly brokered dozens of deals between fellow members of the Conservative Vice Lords street gang and his associates, John Phillips and Christopher Henderson, over Facebook throughout 2016 and 2017, court records show. All three men, aged 23, face up to five years in prison for dealing firearms without a license. Phillips, a twice-convicted felon, faces additional charges for illegal possession of a gun. Federal prosecutors said Henderson — using a fake Kentucky driver’s license bearing the name Chris Hendridge — bought up to 90 firearms from private sellers in Kentucky listed on Armslist.com. Cell phone records and seller interviews mentioning Phillips’ “late model white muscle car” tied both men to the purchases, court records show. Police later intercepted Facebook messages between Henderson and Wright allegedly detailing brokered deals for many of the guns trafficked from the Kentucky Armslist sales. Some of these firearms turned up in crimes in Chicago and surrounding suburbs — including a carjacking just four months after Henderson and Phillips bought the gun in a Louisville grocery store parking lot.

In other words, Henderson found a way around the laws in place to provide weapons to gang bangers in Chi-Town.

And no, universal background checks wouldn’t have done squat since he was using a fake ID. The background check would have come back for the alias, not his real name. The only hope would have been another set of eyes potentially noticing the ID card wasn’t legit. That’s it.

We keep seeing, time and again, that these criminals will continue to circumvent the law to get their hands on guns. They don’t care about the law.

Then again, maybe it’s because someone who can buy a gun for her felon boyfriend only gets a year in prison for her straw buys. In other words, the punishment is non-existent for many of these people. They break the law, then get a short stay in prison, then they’re back on the streets in no time at all. There’s no deterrent.

Granted, I suspect Henderson is looking at more time than that woman got, but only because of the scale of his crimes. He not only purchased guns illegally but then sold them to some of the worst scum on the streets. That’ll get him a couple more years. At least, I hope so.

But if you really want to say you’re serious about curbing this kind of thing, why not start with talking about beefier sentencing for those who secure firearms for prohibited individuals rather than getting in the way of us law-abiding citizens exercising our constitutionally protected rights?

You know, just for fun.