Crime prevention has its limits. You can only do so much to try to stop criminal acts before they happen before you start wading into rights snatching territory. See the “terrorist watch list” for more details.

But Democratic Caucus Vice-Chair Rep. Joe Crowley of New York has no need for watch lists, and silly prevention methods. Crowley apparently has discovered the power to see into our thoughts. Specifically the thoughts of those of us who wish to buy firearms.

Crowley was at a press conference on Tuesday, speaking on the subject of gun control, when he dropped this bomb.

But what we do know is that there will be more people killed by guns and people who ought not to have those weapons because a thorough background check was not in place to make sure that people who have mental incapacity, that have terrorist thoughts, who have criminal thoughts or records, or behavior that would lead law enforcement to deny them access to those weapons – that’s what we’re looking for that’s what the American people are looking for.

Whether Crowley has developed a type of background check that can deduce intent before it happens, or perhaps he has a couple of Minority Report pre-cogs tucked away in his office, thought crime is still a fantasy only indulged by the left. There is no machine, or psychic capable of reaching into the mind of a gun buyer and predicting his future.

Is Miss Cleo is available for tarot readings at gun stores? I doubt it.

Here’s a fun fact. Everyone has criminal thoughts. I can’t walk by a speaker playing Beyonce’s Drunk In Love without wanting to vandalize it, and everything around it. I know people who fantasize about resorting to violence when people talk in the theatre. Drive slow in the fast lane, and start wishing I had a car from Twisted Metal. You’re probably just like me.

But we don’t do violence, or vandalize, or put machine guns on our cars to use on others because good people’s bad thoughts only go so far as being thoughts.

The hard truth is that gun crime is going to happen no matter what we do. In fact, crime in general is just a natural part of civilization. Your best bet is to arm as many good people as possible because it’s those good people with guns who are the best kind of crime prevention.