Guns don't kill people, people kill people

[1][2][3] The slogan and connected understanding dates back to at least the 1910s, and it became widely popular among gun advocates in the second half of the 20th century, so much so that some have labeled it a cliché.

The statement, its variants, and counter-variants have been positively or negatively referenced and paraphrased by both sides of the gun control debate, including NRA representatives, the President of the United States, lawmakers, and members of the general public.

American, Canadian, Dutch, French, and Israeli philosophers, criminologists, psychiatrists, lawyers, and others have considered the statement.

There are numerous variations that extend the slogan to mental health and social issues, including some that convey that guns make it easier for people to kill, and others in which 'people' is substituted with criminals, toddlers, children, bullets, or other nouns.

[4] American investigative journalist Jack Anderson has called the statement the organization's "first article of faith".

[5] In 1968, during the introduction of the National Gun Crime Prevention Act bill, a frequently-asked-questions list was framed[who?].

The answer provided accepted that people with guns commit crimes and included statistics for gun-related robberies and assaults.

[20] The statement has an impact on the larger gun debate and its general message can be heard in response to shootings, even in the United States Congress.

The NRA's position on gun violence, the Brady Bill, and the assault weapons ban.

[27] The statement has been used in Congress on numerous occasions; four days after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, Representative Gerry Connolly said the cliched phrase still impacts public debate.

[28] The following year Representative Rosa DeLauro shared a letter from a ninth grade student who quoted the slogan and compared Sandy Hook to the Chenpeng Village Primary School stabbing alluding to the lethality of guns.

[30][31] American politician Mike Thompson, as a gun owner, used the slogan to justify background checks.

[59] David Kyle Johnson, a professor of philosophy, considers the statement in the context of proximate and ultimate causation.

[59] American philosopher Joseph C. Pitt explains that the slogan presents a false dilemma (or false dichotomy, an either/or choice that is a type of informal fallacy) as it tries to force a choice between what does the killing, guns or people, when in fact there is no reason to suppose that the answer is either/or.

[60] Austin explains that existing law in the United States such as the National Firearms Act, which regulates automatic weapons, already consider the situation as a combined human-gun issue.

"The statement and connected reasoning convey a proposition that guns are tools, inanimate, amoral, and neutral.

Once the young people learn to respect others and themselves, the guns will stay in the drawer and no longer jump out to shoot someone.

[1] Bruno Latour, a French philosopher, gave an analysis of the slogan in 1994 emphasizing that the transformative nature of the gun-human relation mattered as compared to just analyzing guns and people separately.

[78][75] Peter-Paul Verbeek, a Dutch philosopher, argues on the same line that responsibility of a kill rests with both gun and person.

[79] However, Israeli academic and philosopher Boaz Miller contests and extends both Pitt's and Verbeek's stance, that technology manufacturers and creators are also responsible for the use of their products.

The human factor also encompasses people who are part of research and development to manufacturing to the marketing logistics chain.

[92] American physician and professor Stephen Hargarten and other researchers have provided a biopsychosocial disease approach to this statement about gun violence resulting in the conclusion that it is "scientifically inaccurate".

[93][94] Analyzing gun use according to scientific models such as the "disease model" allows for greater accuracy in the identification of areas for intervention such as the bullet, the kinetic energy, the impact of the projectile on the body, the physical changes made to the body as a result, and the health issues behind the pull of a trigger among other things.

[46] American right-wing political commentator Ann Coulter frames it as "Guns don't kill people, the mentally ill do.

[101] Charlton Heston, a NRA president, has been quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations saying "It's not the guns that kill, it's the maladjusted kids.

[104] Bumper stickers have seen a number of variations such as "guns don't kill people, drivers with cell phones do".

Just a few days before that, on 21 November, he said "It may be true that guns don't kill and people do, but handguns make it a lot easier.

[58] In 1993, following the Long Island Rail Road shooting, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan stated that "guns don't kill people, bullets do" amidst proposing bans on select ammunition, taxes on others, and increased scrutiny in general.

[121][122] Leading from this is an adapted conclusion "Guns don't kill people – a complex mix of national characteristics and historical factors eventually coming to a boil does".

[125] Ana Marie Cox and Michael Moorcock (in a review of Iain Overton's book) independently analyze this statement and the statistics that back it up.