> strictest handgun laws in the country and it has done nothing to stop the killings by the criminals ...

We don't know how many more killings there'd have been without the laws - depending on whom you mean by "the criminals."

> Well, those we are worried about could care less about 'legally', as many of them INTEND to do illegal stuff anyway!

It's true that professional criminals have no problem getting guns, but the lone nuts we're mostly talking about are less likely to have the necessary "connections." And the professional criminals mainly use the guns on each other.

Fact: there's no way to know how many additional shootings strict gun laws have already prevented. Maybe none, maybe some, maybe a lot.

Fact: there's no way absolutely to prevent all mass shootings by   armed maniacs. (It's somewhat surprising that there are statistically so few - a handful out of 300 million people. So far.)

Fact: there's no reason besides politics - and fear of the NRA in particular - why the gun-show exception should not be addressed.

Likely: some pointless new laws will be passed just so it looks like somebody is doing something.

Not impossible: some helpful new laws will be passed somewhere, and some old ones will be better enforced.