"If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will own guns" (1968)

[James Harbeck]

Interestingly, another slogan I've been expecting to see getting lots
of air, "Guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people" (or
variations thereon), seems to be getting more use (sometimes in a
varation) in writings by proponents of gun control -- as in:

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people. But guns certainly make
it easier."
www.darkmirage.com/2007/04/17/ guns-dont-kill-people-people-kill-people/

"Guns Don't Kill People, Bullets Do
Here we go again. We're going to have the tired old debate about
whether it was the guns that killed the kids at Virginia Tech or the
clearly disturbed guy who used them. The answer is so obvious that I
can't bear to go through another round of this debate. Of course,
it's both!"
www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/guns-dont-kill-people-b_b_46060.html

"Guns Don't Kill People, People Kill People -
But People Use Guns To Kill People"
"But whilst guns don't kill people, but people kill people, a gun
makes it far too easy. Guns aren't toys or playthings, they're
fucking dangerous. Guns should be hard to get hold of."
thethunderdragon.blogspot.com/2007/04/guns-dont-kill-people-people-kill.html
(this site is billed as "A Politicial Opinion From A Young Conservative" -- !)

"Guns Don't Kill People. . .
. . .People With Guns Kill People"
"A Constitutional right to bear arms? Okay, fine. You've got us
there. Let's arm every man, woman, and college student in America --
with the notable exception of Dick Cheney -- with a sling shot and a
handful of pebbles. Maybe they'll take out an eye, or two, but few
will be felled, let alone massacred, by a single, rampaging
slingshotter."
thecommunityalliance.blogspot.com/2007/04/guns-dont-kill-people.html

"guns don't kill people, bullets do"
"I think every parent who is watching this is wondering if they will
some day send their children to school to be sitting ducks for a nut
case with a gun. A gun that fires enough bullets to kill 30 people in
a minute."
dangerblond.org/blog/?p=708

"Guns Don't Kill People; Law-Abiding Citizens Excercising Their
2nd-Amendment Rights Kill People. With Guns."
tehipitetom.blogspot.com/2007/04/guns-dont-kill-people-law-abiding.html

"Guns don't kill people--Koreans kill people"
"Reacting to the Virginia Tech massacre, The View co-host Rosie
O'Donnell called on Americans to end their love affair with Koreans.
'A Korean is responsible for the biggest murder spree in American
history, therefore, to prevent the recurrence of similar crimes in
the future, we must immediately ban all Koreans.' 'At the very
least,' proclaimed O'Donnell, 'our leaders must pass legislation
mandating the immediate utilization of safeguards that prevent
Koreans from falling into the wrong hands and killing again.'"
www.imao.us/archives/007670.html


And then there's this one, not related to the Virginia Tech shootings:
"Guns don't kill people, but vendors are to be blamed for copyright
infringement?"
"We live in a world where gun manufacturers are not held liable for
when people are killed, but where the person who is in possession and
control is liable. While this is how we treat the major crimes that
can be committed with guns, there are insane lawmakers worldwide who
seem to think a different standard should be used for information
technology. Rather than having individual citizens responsible for
their own use and abuse of technology, the responsibility seems to be
entirely in the hands of hardware manufacturers and software authors."
www.digital-copyright.ca/node/3821


The only one of the results on the first page of Google hits that's
from a gun control opponent is not related to the Virginia Tech
shootings:

"Guns Don't Kill People, Gun Control Kills People
Uganda terrorizes its own citizens under the auspices of UN gun
control mandate."
reason.com/news/show/118708.html


It would seem that the "guns don't kill people" slogan has been
abandoned by the NRA and its friends as, uh, too easy a target. But
it's making a nice popular idiom. It gets other variations, too. Like
this one: "Cookies don't make people fat. People make people (i.e.,
themselves) fat. They do this by eating entire tubes of of Thin Mints
in a single setting (this is, by the way, what I usually do) instead
of the recommended serving."
(marianneblog.blogspot.com/2005/03/girlscouts-kill.html) I'm sure
I've seen assorted other variations on this one, but it's not so easy
to search for, so I'll just keep an eye open for any others I spot to
post here...

James Harbeck.

PS A comparison of crime stats between the US and Canada shows that
when guns are hard to get, some of the outlaws may still have guns,
but a lot fewer of them do.

The thing that I find most risible in all this is the contention that
this could have been prevented if students weren't prohibited from
carrying guns on the Virginia Tech campus. Knowing how people
actually are in this kind of situation (as opposed to, say, in a
movie), I think that one of two things would have happened: a)
nothing different from what did, because nobody with a gun would have
been around or would have had the nerve to use it; b) a shootout that
might have ended up killing a lot more people -- including, probably,
one or two of the people trying to kill the original shooter, being
mistaken for him themselves.

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