Blocking people with a history of violent mental illness from buying guns substantially reduces their likelihood of shooting anyone — but those people are so few in number that it makes a tiny difference in the total number of shootings.

The article suggests other approaches that could have more effect.

According to Bowling for Columbine, Canada makes it easy to own a gun but puts lots of safety restrictions on how to store them and how to take them out of the house — and has a much lower rate of gun crime. Perhaps this is a good approach to follow.

Banning large magazines seems to have common sense, too.