Are vb.net eventArgs maintained at a "system" level?

I have a custom developed control I am using that somebody else wrote. For some reason, when the control was written, they did not write an event handler for the "mouseDown" event so when I mouseDown on the control, no event i开发者_开发技巧s fired. What I am basically trying to do is capture which mouse button (left or right) is pressed when the control is clicked on. Is there any sort of system level objects that maintain system state (including which mouse buttons are currently being pressed regardless of the control being clicked upon?)