Constitutional arguments aside, the directives and other gun control initiatives is nothing more than an emotional response to a tragic shooting devoid of logic and reasoning. It exists simply to placate the bent out of shape gun control masses and talking media heads.
These new directives will not affect violent crime rates or even criminal acts committed with a gun. Ownership and/or "proliferation" of guns have little to nothing to do with violent crime rates. To the normal American, it just seems an obvious answer........the same thinking people have in believing that more police patrolling in their vehicles reduces crime (it doesn't). Violent crime rates are concentrated primarily within inner city minority groups, who unsurprisingly, have the lowest rates of gun ownership. There are many reasons why violent crimes happen(poverty, education, family structure, etc..), however, gun control laws do little to affect it.
The largest school massacre occurred in 1927...from a guy using dynamite. What if Adam Lanza did not have access to his mother's legally acquired guns? What if the Virginia Tech shooter did not have guns? What if James Holmes did not have guns? Maybe nothing, or perhaps they'd use homemade explosives, molotov cocktails, or a chemical weapon, all of which are relatively easy and cheap to make.
Violent crime rates have continued to fall in the past few decades across the US and again....it has nothing to do with gun control. Even that idiot Guiliani tried to take claim for the crime decreases in NYC while he was mayor....his initiatives did shit but the statistics went in his favor.