Tell us again, gun grabbers, how effective your universal background checks are at stopping violent crime:

The gunman who was shot and killed Monday at New Hope City Hall after wounding two police officers had called court officials earlier in the day, then bought ammunition for the gun he fired that night, authorities said Wednesday.

In laying out a timeline for the confrontation that left R______ K____* , 68, dead, Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek also sent out this message Wednesday: “If you fire on a police officer, they are trained to fire back.”

Noting that K____ had been civilly committed twice for mental health problems, Stanek said, “He should not have had access to any type of weapon.”

Authorities do not know how K____ got the gun, which the sheriff described as a “pistol-grip shotgun” with the serial numbers “obliterated.”

The man who attacked New hope City Hall had a long history of making terrorist threats against public officials, and had been committed involuntarily to mental health facilities numerous times. He was incurably mentally ill, but he was set free because there aren’t enough beds in long-term mental health care facilities to warehouse people like him who are clear threats to the public, but who haven’t yet acted on their violent threats.

Well, K____ finally acted on his years of violent threats, and there wasn’t a single gun control law on the books or proposed that impeded him in any way from obtaining a firearm. Fortunately for all concerned, he wasn’t able to use his weapon to kill anyone before officers neutralized him, permanently.

You’ll note that Sheriff Stanek pointed out that the serial number on the shotgun K____ used had been “obliterated.”

Typically firearms that have had there serial numbers obliterated are firearms that have been stolen by criminals. They destroy the serial numbers to keep them from being tied to the specific theft where the firearm was taken and other items that may have been taken, because the difference between misdemeanor and felony theft are crimes in most states is total value of the items (typically $500) stolen during the crime. By destroying serial numbers, the criminals are hoping to avoid being tired to a specific theft and avoiding more and stiffer charges.

Once a firearm has its serial number obliterated, it cannot be sold on the open market. All transactions with firearms so defaced are illegal, and are sold/traded only from criminal to criminal.

If the shotgun in question is less than 22 years old, it purchased legally from an FFL with a NICS background check performed on the original purchaser. At some point it was stolen, either from the original owner or a subsequent owner, and then defaced. It isn’t possible to know how many times this specific weapon was transferred among criminals, or home many crimes it might have been used in prior to being sold to K____ illegally.

K___ then used the stolen weapon to carry out his and its final crime, the assault on New Hope City Hall.

Universal background checks wouldn’t have stopped this attack.

Universal background check laws haven’t been proven to have stopped a single attack.

Not one.

Most mass and spree killers—including those at Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, and the Washington Navy Yard—buy their firearms after having undergone background checks.  Others—such as the killers at Columbine, Sandy Hook, and the attempted mass shooting at Clackamas Town Center Mall stopped by concealed carrier Nick Meli—the weapons were acquired illegally, through straw purchases, murder, and theft.

Universal background checks are proven to be useless when it comes to stopping or deterring violent criminals, and only serve to let the government know who has which guns.

Intelligent people must wonder why supporters of gun control and prohibition are so fiercely dedicated to pushing universal background checks on a law-abiding citizenry.

The answer is sadly self-evident.

Saving lives has never been the point of universal background checks.

Learning the identify of every gun owner, discovering which guns they own, and where they keep them, is only useful for future legislation aimed at firearm confiscation.

Universal background checks only exist to be used as a weapon against law-abiding citizens.

* Bearing Arms does not publish the names of mass or spree killers, whether or not they were successful in their attempts.