AP Photo/Steve Helber, File

In the wake of the Virginia Beach mass shooting, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam is probably more than a little upset that he didn’t get his way on gun control during the legislative session. Granted, nothing that was being discussed would have prevented this tragedy, but in the gun grabber’s mind, that’s not how any of this stuff works.

Now, Northam has called for a special legislative session to address the issue of gun control.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam ordered a special legislative session to address gun violence Tuesday, four days after a public works employee killed 12 people in a shooting rampage at a municipal building in Virginia Beach.

“The nation is watching,” Northam said at a new conference. “We must do more than give our thoughts and prayers. We must give Virginians the action they deserve.”

Northam said he would seek universal background checks, bans on assault weapons and suppressors, extreme-risk protective orders, child access prevention and other restrictions.

“It is wrong that we now view these mass shootings as the new normal,” Northam said. “It is past time to change.”

Wow. A whole smorgasbord of anti-gun items that won’t do jack to avert the next Virginia Beach.

Universal background checks – the Virginia Beach killer apparently passed two of them, had no criminal record, and was a veteran of the Virginia National Guard. There’s no reason he wouldn’t have passed such a background check since, well, he did.

Bans on assault weapons – the killer used two handguns.

Bans on suppressors – suppressors have been viewed as the big boogieman in this, but everyone heard the shots being fired. They just chalked them up to construction taking place. There’s no evidence that they made the attack more lethal. That’s because they’re safety devices, not sound elimination devices that make firearms silent death machines. Plus, banning them would be a logistical nightmare since there are thousands already in the state.

Extreme-risk protective orders – while it does appear that the killer was beginning to get a little violent, there doesn’t seem to be any indication that such an order would have done a thing here. There aren’t legions of people claiming that they knew he was about to snap but were powerless to stop it.

Child access prevention – the killer was an adult and the lawful owner of the firearms used.

I’ve said before that anti-gunners use the bodies of the slain as a soapbox to promote their anti-gun agenda, and this is all the evidence you should need to know I’m right. The only proposal mentioned that’s remotely related to what happened in Virginia Beach is the call for banning suppressors. Northam doesn’t care. He’s seizing on the tragedy to bring lawmakers back to work on his pet project.

What’s worse is that many will be willing to capitulate. They’re going to feel the heat that inevitably boils up during the immediate aftermath and pass some poor legislation.

Northam knows it. He’s counting on it. He’s trying to leverage it into action on a whole slate of regulations that he knows damn good and well won’t stop the next mass shooting. He wants them anyway.

He’s more than willing to use the ghoulish opportunity presented to him. I suspect he’s been waiting for a mass shooting so he could do something like this.

I hope that pro-gun lawmakers remember their oaths of office and how they swore to protect the Constitution and leave a fuming Northam behind at the close of this special session.