Saying 'we shouldn't do anything because anything we do will be ineffective' isn't what we should be doing, though. This is an area where there has been a serious policy shortfall, and just sitting on our hands wringing them saying 'but it'll be ineffective' does nothing when something very clearly needs to be done.
I'd rather we did 20 different ineffective things, and tossed them out and did new things when it was clear that these didn't work (or kept them if it did work), than just sat on our hands and vacillated because the possible remedial effect was unclear.
Doing nothing when people are getting killed due to inaction is the worst possible remedy possible, because all it does is say 'look, we're gonna pretend to give a shit, but we don't actually care about how many people get killed because it's much more important that we get to play with guns'.
What? Seriously? Do something that will not work over nothing? You cannot be serious. First, no one wants to do nothing. There are ways that will work in reducing gun violence, expanding background check, things like Project Exile and the FACE 5 program that would work in reducing gun violence that people are advocating for. No one wants to do
nothing. They just would not want to do something that would trample on peoples rights and do something that will not work.
Let me put your argument of 'do something that will not work over nothing", something I find rather inaccurate and divorced from reality, into context. There are racists now so lets go ahead and start banning all sorts of speech, trampling on the First Amendment, despite the fact that doing so would not make racism go away and is therefore ineffective because doing something that will not work is better than thinking through your options.
Just doing something because doing something, anything, is better than nothing, regardless of the effectiveness and the effect of what you call for, is foolish, shortsighted and unscientific.
I'm of the opinion that, all things considered, criminals don't want to have guns. They'd much rather commit any crimes with the bare minimum of an additional force multiplier necessary - 'robbery' carries a much shorter term than 'armed robbery', so to minimize risk to yourself, your best case scenario, if you know the other guy is unarmed, is to walk in with a knife or a baseball bat or something, not an AK-47.
The only reason criminals feel the need to have a gun is because there's a pretty good chance the guy they're attacking has a gun too. And if that's the case, well, they don't need to worry about the potential risk of getting caught - they need to worry about being shot by the guy they're trying to rob.
And if we reduce the amount of overall weapons, it'll change that risk-reward calculation significantly - sure, criminals will still 'be able' to get guns, but because there isn't that imperative to have them in order to be able to carry out crimes in the first place, they are much less likely to use them because if they're caught with them, the legal consequences are so much greater. The guys robbing banks or whatever will still have their manifestly illegal guns, but 'rando mugger' will probably have a knife or a piece of pipe instead of a gun - and that's less likely to wind up with someone dead in an alleyway.
And this expert opinion is backed up with what facts? I'm no expert, I will say, but there is a rather large hole in your opinion. Rando mugger dude, yes, is unlikely to have a gun (mostly because they could not afford it) but the ones who do have guns are gang members, by and large. Gang related crimes are the ones with the highest chance of a gun getting involved.
And just a question, if Rando mugger dude walked into your store with a knife or down the street and held you up, what is the most effective weapon possible to either get him to back down or to defend yourself? Oh yeah, its a gun.
