Usually, a gun is a tool used by innocent citizens to defend themselves from a violent criminal. Nowadays, there are around twice as many
defensive gun uses than
violent crimes per year.
This valuable distinction is not just semantics, it's crucial for an effective policy.
Gun control advocates self sabotage by thinking that guns kill people, yet it's actually the criminals and the mentally disturbed who kill people using guns. This is a common error by those who choose not to defend themselves, yet deny others any right to that same choice.
But statistics have clarity, they count the number of homicides per hundred thousand people, not per hundred thousand guns. This is because a gun is an inert object, just like a knife or a motor-car. Knives, cars and many other objects can and have been used to kill people, but no one with any sense is suggesting banning knives or cars. That's because people kill people, the gun or the knife or the car is the instrument they use. Far more frequently, a gun is the instrument that stops any killing.
Whenever someone misuses a gun to kill people, as in the Sandy Hook school massacre, then he's misusing it. You'll change your life by understanding that guns are protected under the US constitution for self-defense, not so you can kill other people. And when someone uses a gun to coerce you, then you have the right to protect yourself with a gun. The right to own a gun enables you to defend yourself.