California has some of the most strict gun control laws in the country, yet despite the laws, it seems that thousands of Californians who shouldn’t own firearms, do. At least, that’s what the Los Angeles Times notes in their story on the situation.

In response to the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut five years ago, outraged California lawmakers launched a crackdown within months of the tragedy that has seized 18,000 firearms, including assault rifles, from thousands of people convicted of felonies, subject to domestic violence restraining orders or judged by the courts to be severely mentally ill. But a surge in gun sales and a reduction in funding for the program has stymied efforts by the state Department of Justice to eliminate a backlog of people in California who have firearms and shouldn’t. Approximately 10,226 people remain on a list of Californians who legally purchased guns but were later disqualified from possessing them Now, a new law is giving law enforcement officials hope that greater headway can be made in disarming Californians who are ineligible to own guns. “Significantly, it means we finally have a process in place to ensure that dangerous, convicted criminals are forced to get rid of their guns,” said Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who sponsored the new law as part of Proposition 63, a ballot measure that also included background checks on ammunition purchases and banned the sale of large-capacity firearm magazines. It was approved by voters in 2016. In 2006, California became the first state in the nation to create a database that cross-references firearms purchasers against a list of people convicted of crimes, or who are subject to mental health judgments or domestic violence restraining orders that prohibit them from possessing guns.

You mean that despite all the gun control laws in California, thousands of people were able to buy firearms? Really? That doesn’t seem possible. After all, we have it on good authority that gun control works and that gun control laws keep guns out of the wrong hands, so how did more than 10,000 people get guns if they weren’t legally allowed to have them in the first place?

And I hate to break it to California, but I’d be willing to bet there are more than 10,000 people who own guns despite being ineligible in L.A. alone, much less the rest of the state. These numbers just reflect people who otherwise obeyed the law. It has zero reflection of people who purchased guns through black market sources or the darknet.

Frankly, those are the guns you need to worry more about. Those are the people who bought guns with the express purpose of using them illegally.

But hey, it’s California. This is what they do. They focus on the showy stuff to look like they’re doing something about violent crime, but they’re still accomplishing absolutely nothing about the guns that are the real problem.

Don’t get me wrong, if people aren’t legally allowed to own guns, they don’t need to have guns. I might not agree with all of those laws, but they’re the laws. You follow them and then work to get them changed if you dislike them. You don’t break them just because.

However, it’s also proof that decades upon decades of gun laws haven’t had the effect gun control advocates would like to pretend it did.