Virginia Tech incident and Gun Control

I've been writing some long posts today, but I think this one will be short and simple.

I'm not particularly a gun-control advocate. I think everything to a point needs to be controlled, the more hazard involved the more control might be advised.

So, Cho goes and purchases a gun and a large amount of ammunition from a gun store at age 23. This is perfectly legal under present laws. Some politicians are taking the time right now to put their foot down and say that better gun control laws will not provide any more benefit.

I think; however, that they are wrong. Specifically on two points that wouldn't be particularly restrictive.

1) I have a friend who is 24, he cannot rent a car. Cho, would not be allowed to rent a car unless he put down $500 payment (in addition to normal rental charges) that he would not get back. My friend had need of a rental car because he traveled to Florida for flight school. No car was available to him. So, let's be straight about this, if it is a business and it MAY cost them money it justifies greater control than a person who wants to purchase a gun which is designed to kill. This doesn't make sense to me. One of these items needs to give, either the age for renting a car or the age for purchasing a gun. Both have high requirements for responsibility. Both can kill. Only one will cost a business a lot of money if it gets wrecked or used improperly. Only one has a higher age requirement for use.

2) It is all well and good that people want to be able to walk in to a store and purchase a gun and walk out that day. However, it sounds like Cho didn't have a single friend and that is most likely part of the profile for him performing the actions that he did. Is it such a burden that if you go to purchase a gun that at least one other person be with you and legally sign that you have known the person for at least 3 years and that you know of no reason that the person purchasing the gun would use it on a person except in self-defense conditions? (for handguns, for hunting rifles, the requirements would be written slightly different)

I don't think the above are drastic changes to what happens when someone wants to buy a gun.

Oh, and one more thing. The victims the doctors saw that were alive all had multiple gun shot wounds. Don't you think that means that the dead victims had multiple gun shot wounds? The doctors indicated that there were at least 3 wounds per person in the hospital.

So, let's do a little math. Cho bought (at least) 17 [injured] * 3 (51) + 32 [dead] * 3 (96) = (147) rounds of ammunition. Now, don't get me wrong, but he bought the gun in March, so he didn't spread the purchase of the ammo across a lot of time - don't you think it should have raised an eyebrow that he bought almost 150 rounds of ammunition? Wouldn't someone think to ask what purpose do they need to have that much ammunition? It doesn't mean that buying that much ammunition needs to be illegal; however, if you can't answer that question with a "I'm going to a target range with a couple buddies and we are practicing our shooting abilities." or something similar I think the shop keep should be thinking about something more than just how much money he is going to make off the sale.

Even some relatively mild controls would have prevented this situation from happening - or at least happening the way it did.