Barack Obama’s Gun Control Measures: Harmless but Ineffective – Spectator Blogs

Barack Obama’s response to the horror of Sandy Hook was entirely predictable, largely unobjectionable and most unlikely to make much of a difference to very much at all. Politics as usual, then.

If the President had the air of a man dusting off a long-closed folder marked “Standard Democratic proposals for gun control” then, well, that’s because that’s pretty much what he was doing. Perhaps there was a sheepish air to his performance too, the look of a man who would have liked to do this long ago but lacked the opportunity – or desire – to risk venturing into this field.

Nevertheless, none of the gun-measures Obama announced yesterday would have prevented Adam Lanza’s shooting spree in Newtown, Connecticut. We should be wary of supposing they will prevent future mass killings too. This is not an area in which Presidential “leadership” can realistically achieve much.

Which is not so say that strengthening background checks and making it harder to purchase guns on behalf of someone else are bad ideas.