- Position1 of 2›
- Guns kill people
"Due to the Industrial Revolution, and the American Civil War and World War I, gun manufacturers stimulated production of handmade assault weapons and more powerful handguns and pistols with the only purpose of killing enemy soldiers with less accuracy and a higher concentration of bullets" -Bernie Sanders
The argument
Guns kill people because there are guns that are made exclusively to kill. There are guns designed with the intent of lethal harm against human beings. Mass murder is defined as the killing of three or more victims at one location within one event. A mass shooting is a specific type of mass murder, and they are the most common type of mass murder to occur by and large. For instance, there were more mass shootings across the United States in 2019 than there were days in the year. If it were not guns that killed people, mass murderers would choose to arm themselves with guns to commit their heinous crimes. If guns don't kill people, mass killers would not use lethal firearms made for the exclusive purpose of harming individuals. Mass killers don’t choose a knife as a weapon of choice because knives are not weapons exclusively made to kill people. If the goal is to kill, firearms and assault rifles are the weapons to achieve that task. Guns kill people because they are the weapons that prevail over all else to kill by the masses.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Guns are used for a variety of reasons, reasons that have no relation to death or murder. Those who legally buy and carry guns often do so because of reasons that are rooted in security and protection. Often the guns civilians will buy will be so that they can protect themselves and feel safe at all times. It is a well-known slogan that "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." This slogan highlights one of the many reasons why civilians want to be legally armed with a gun. Moreover, many people use guns for recreational reasons, such as hunting or shooting targets for fun. The guns that people use to kill others are the same guns that are often used for nonviolent nor ill-intentioned reasons. Therefore, not all guns are made exclusively to kill; the actual person who has the gun chooses what to do with it.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P1] 'Exclusively' is too strong for the category as a whole. Some firearms are designed for military application, but most in civilian hands are built for hunting, sport shooting or defensive carry, and the premise generalises from a subset to the class. [Rejecting P2] The choice pattern is real and establishes that guns are far more lethal than the alternatives — a claim about capability, not about agency. That a killer selects the most effective instrument available is a fact about the killer's reasoning. [Rejecting P3] The step from purpose-built to 'what does the killing' is the whole dispute, asserted rather than argued. On the same reasoning a tool designed for cutting would be what does the cutting, which is not how responsibility for a deliberate act is ordinarily assigned. [Rejecting C] The framing is unhelpful even for the position it serves. The strong case for firearm regulation does not require denying that people pull triggers; it rests on how much easier a gun makes killing and how closely availability tracks the number of deaths.