Lee Feder suggests learning from our mistakes in cases like the NIU shooting, and I wholeheartedly agree, but I would go a different direction. Lee suggests that more gun laws and increased waiting times when purchasing a firearm are the answer to preventing shootings. I do not see how either of these measures would have helped. Kazmierczak bought his guns legally and ignored many laws already in place when he walked into that lecture hall, so what would a few more have done?

Lee probably does not own a gun or he would know that “slowing down” the process of gun ownership also would not help at all.

A Firearm Owners Identification Card already takes a long time and an extensive background check to receive. In Illinois, when purchasing a firearm, there is a mandatory waiting period between 24 and 72 hours to receive the firearm. Making this longer to “give the federal government more time to perform background checks” is worthless because of NICS.

The National Instant Criminal Background Check System is a background check system that has the support of police and federal agencies, and ironically is supported by the anti-gun Brady Campaign and the National Rifle Association.

This system checks many databases for reasons to disqualify an individual for firearm ownership.

The check performed by this system takes a grand total of 30 seconds and nothing more is checked in the remaining 24-72 hours of the waiting period, so a longer time will not help.

I think the real third tragedy is that the media and the public do not learn that the methods of killing are less important than the motives, and that motives for killing rarely boil down to something so simple as he didn’t take his medication this morning.