Guns are not responsible for murder, people are. That’s my philosophy.

Whenever there’s a gun related death, the gun is held responsible rather than the person. There’s a word association occurring which is due to metonymy.

Essentially, guns don’t make up the minds of those holding them. Guns don’t whisper commands to shooters and guns don’t dictate their victims, should there be any. Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.

According to “The Great Gun Control Fallacy” (2012) by Thomas Sowell, the murder rate in this country has decreased despite gun ownership doubling in the past century. Guns and gun control have no influence over this.

Despite the legal action taken to ensure that guns stay out of the people’s hands, even those law-abiding citizens who use them for sport, murder rates have all the more to do with the person than the weapon.

According to the National Rifle Association (NRA), over two million people use rifles for self defense across the country, which is the intended effect.

Without guns, we’d have the same homicidal individuals, except there’d be more crafty ones who obtain firearms from the black market which is unregulated and there’d be bombings and other means to carry out acts just as vile as those carried out by guns.

Further, save for the annual tragedies that are mass shootings, we see more of an increase and trend that suicides make up in gun ownership.

I recognize that the case for gun control is valid, but I think a case helping those who are mentally ill or suicidal are more sound. Finding ways to reach those who are in control of guns and evaluating their mental and emotional health before they are able to own a gun should be the priority, after all, it’s not gun violence we’re trying to stop. It’s violence people are using against others.

The best way to reduce those killed by guns every year isn’t gun control. It’s to control gun ownership.