Guns don’t kill people, true -- in exactly the same way ricin and hand grenades don’t kill people.

There is a perfectly good sense in which guns don’t kill people, but it is not a sense that has any implications for gun control policy.

Put aside that pretty much everyone would have to admit that guns sometimes do kill people, e.g. the explosion of a metallurgically defective barrel. In all but rare cases, however, it is the human trigger puller that is responsible for a gun death. The conclusion we are invited to draw is that our gun death prevention policy should focus on the shooter to the complete exclusion of the weapon.

The inference is ludicrous. To be sure we ascribe primary responsibility to the person who throws the hand grenade into the subway car and to the person who launches the shoulder fired rocket at the airliner. Deadly instrumentalities rarely kill without being set in motion by humans, but that is no reason not to prohibit or regulate hand grenades, military rocket launchers, machine guns, ricin, heroin, fentanyl, satchel bombs, and assault rifles. 

Some other thoughts on guns, and the amendment so closely associated with them in the American mind:

The Purpose of the Second Amendment Failed Long Since https://lawrencecrocker.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-purpose-of-second-amendment-failed.html

The 2nd Amendment Right to the Open Carry of Swords and Shoulder Launched Missiles https://lawrencecrocker.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-2nd-amendment-right-to-open-carry.html

The Second Amendment: Not One or Two but Three Rights   https://lawrencecrocker.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-second-amendment-not-one-or-two-but.html