New York’s finest, led by Commissioner Kelly, have made the city’s streets safer by taking a major alleged gun trafficking ring out of commission, but New Yorkers will still need to be vigilant lest politicians try to turn lemonade into lemons. The lesson from Sunday’s raid, in which an 11-month investigation netted six arrests and the seizure of 116 guns, is that the people who engage in criminal gun smuggling are, well, criminals and that we have laws and lawmen to deal with them.

The stash of firearms, described by Mr. Kelly as the largest such seizure he could remember, apparently originated in Ohio, where several of those arrested over the weekend allegedly acted as “straw purchasers” to buy guns on behalf of the head of the ring. The accused allegedly drove the guns to New York, where, over the course of the past year, undercover police officers have been buying them as part of the sting. What is illuminated by this case is that the actions of the straw purchasers at the heart of the case are already illegal no matter where one lives. This sting, which involves great courage and cunning by the police, demonstrates, as much as anything else, the amazing success law enforcers can have when they enforce the law.

Mayor Bloomberg is vowing, among other measures, to sue out-of-state gun dealers who knowingly sell to straw purchasers or otherwise violate current laws. By enforcing laws instead of merely passing new ones to not enforce, such suits might make a dent in illegal trafficking. This recent bust raises questions about whether other proposals, such as limiting New Yorkers to one gun purchase every three months, are really what the city needs. It’s hard to see how the alleged traffickers who were prepared to break the laws for which they were arrested would have been particularly bothered by the idea of violating a new round of laws. Commissioner Kelly’s success shows that concerted enforcement efforts can work.