I am a registered firearm owner. My guns were purchased legally from a licensed firearms dealer, with the required background check.

If I wanted to purchase guns without going through the necessary checks, I could attend a local gun show and buy a gun from a private dealer.

This is the way that things have been, but a new senate bill hopes to change that by requiring even private sales to go through a background check.

While this is a step in the right direction, it will do little to curtail the behind the scenes gun sales that happen on a daily basis, and may have little to no impact on the amount of gun violence that is occurring in our country.

The Aurora, Colorado and Sandy Hook shootings have left our country on edge. In their wake, the outcry for more stringent laws and control has reached the point of wailing, but would stronger laws have truly prevented these tragedies?

Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter, used guns that were legally registered to his mother. He was able to find them in her home before he went on his rampage.

Here is an instance of guns getting into the hands of someone with malicious intent without him or her having to go through a background check or any type of screening. His mother already did the work for him. To be fair, she had no way of knowing her son would use her guns in this manner, but we still have to admit that a stronger gun law would not have prevented this tragedy, because she went about the process of obtaining her firearms in the legal manner.

Every gun that James Holmes used in the Aurora shooting was legally obtained, including the assault rifle. He was able to pass the necessary background checks and buy his guns.

There is nothing, other than the fear of jail or an overactive conscience, to stop me or any other licensed gun owner from using our weapons to hurt others. A stricter law requiring background checks won’t change that.

Even if the extended background check becomes law, that won’t prevent anyone who wants to get their hands on a gun from getting one; there will always be someone selling a gun on a corner to a drug dealer or criminal, and there will always be a willing purchaser for an illegally obtained weapon.

This is just the society that we live in.