Living in the UK, I don't own a gun, but if I ever moved to America for an extended period of time, I'd definitely get one...it's the rules of the game. If the bad guys have got one, you should have one too.

As quaint as it sounds, guns don't kill people...people do. Guns are just the tool they select to do the job (and often this same tool will allow them to kill a great number of people very quickly and from quite a distance).

If the killer had stalked around the campus and just stabbed or slit the throats of people with a steak knife, would their now be a call for kitchenware supply shops to start doing background checks on whoever they sold a bladed utensil to? A two week waiting period before you can get that pizza cutter? The same applies to scissors, knitting needles, most power tools etc.

At the end of the day, there are many potentially deadly implements for sale, but it all comes down to the intent of the user. Sadly, for those at VT, this guy's intentions were purely murderous...if he couldn't have laid his hands on a gun, I'm sure he'd have found another way like a bomb or poisoning the cafeteria.