Why More Gun Control Wont Prevent Mass ShootingsLily Dane Sandy Hook was no exception; and the shooting at a school in Colorado yesterday will surely reignite the outrage, and demands for more gun control will be made. Last April, the bipartisan Manchin-Toomey plan to expand background checks for gun buyers failed in the Senate, and thats a good thing that legislation would not have done a thing to prevent mass shootings. Politicians who advocate for more gun control are appealing to emotion we have to do something about the problem, right? But would more strict gun control laws help? Would more stringent background checks (including those on private transfers and sales, as Machin-Toomey proposed) prevent guns from falling into the hands of someone with ill intent? An examination of past mass shootings can help answer those questions. Charles C. W. Cooke of National Review Online, in his Gun Control Dishonesty article, cited a list of massacres that have occurred in recent years. Here are 12 that happened prior to 2013. Pay close attention to how the weapons used were obtained: Cooke also referenced two pre-2011 shootings and last years school massacre that prompted people to do something: Jared Loughner, who shot Representative Gabby Giffords and murdered six other people, bought his 9mm Glock pistol legally. Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech student who was responsible for the most deadly shooting spree in American history, bought a .22 caliber Walther P22 semi-automatic pistol and a 9mm Glock 19 semiautomatic pistol from licensed dealers, and passed background checks on both occasions. And, of course, the guns used at Newtown were legally purchased by the perpetrators mother and then stolen by her son. All of these shootings have something in common: none of the weapons used were purchased through an unregulated private sale or at a gun show. Yet, anti-gun activists and some legislators believe (or do they?) that more strict background checks will miraculously prevent additional gun-related tragedies. Cooke noted that in these cases, Either (a) the killer followed the law to the letter, or (b) he broke it spectacularly. In her April 9, 2013 Washington Post column The Balm of Gun Control, Kathleen Parker posed this question: If a law isnt enforceable, is it a good law? Does it prevent Newtown for neighbors to run through a little ritual that creates yet another level of government oversight for no real practical purpose other than to create a gun registry, which gun-control advocates insist they dont want? She makes the following points: Universal background checks are a perfectly good idea, except that they wont stop the burglar who recently cleaned out our house of all our legally purchased rifles and shotguns. Those guns are now in circulation among an element of society that has no intention of submitting to a background check or any other well-intentioned effort to ensure that only good guys have guns. Banning assault weapons and large magazines is appealing. But what, exactly, is an assault weapon, anyway? Most think of assault weapons as machine guns, but many popular firearms, from ranch rifles to handguns, are, like the AR-15 used at Newtown, semi-automatic. This means that they fire only one round each time the trigger is pulled and the gun automatically reloads. Do we ban all semi-automatic weapons? Limiting the size of magazines also seems like a common-sense solution. Then again, maybe a killer simply would carry several small magazines and swap them out, as Eric Harris did at Columbine High School in 1999 and Seung-Hui Cho did at Virginia Tech in 2007. Harris was armed with a Hi-Point 995 carbine with 13 magazines of 10 rounds each. More gun control, especially in the form of enhanced background checks, is never going to prevent mass shootings (or any shooting) from happening if the will is there. Enacting more stringent background checks is a feel-good measure designed to appease the public and make it appear as if officials are taking action. Criminals will always have guns. More gun control regulation will only hinder law-abiding citizens from being able to protect their lives and those of their families and perhaps, from protecting your life as well. RELATED ARTICLE: Lily Dane is a staff writer for The Daily Sheeple, where this first appeared. Her goal is to help people to Wake the Flock Up! 