Opinion
By John Velleco, Executive Vice President of Gun Owners of America.
When I was a child, we had a saying: “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” On the playground that may have worked, but in real life, words matter, a lot. The way we frame issues shapes how we respond to them.
That’s why gun control advocates lean so heavily on the phrase “gun violence.”
At first, it sounds like a reasonable way to describe a tragedy involving firearms. But in reality, it’s a calculated term, invented to mislead the public, shift blame away from real problems, and justify sweeping restrictions on law-abiding citizens.
As Dan Wos recently pointed out in AmmoLand News, framing crime as “gun violence” is no accident. It’s about stigmatizing the tool rather than confronting the behavior. No one talks about “knife violence” or “baseball bat violence,” even though statistics show more Americans are killed each year with knives or blunt objects than with rifles.
The phrase “gun violence” is simply a political weapon, not an honest description.
The danger is that this language distracts us from addressing the true drivers of crime: things like untreated mental illness, gang activity, drug epidemics, and the breakdown of families. These are tough, complex challenges with no easy solutions. It’s far simpler for politicians to slap a label on crime, propose another gun restriction, and declare they’re “doing something.” But that’s not leadership.
Consider how we handle other tragedies. If a drunk driver kills someone, we don’t blame “car violence.” We hold the driver accountable. A gun, like a car, is an inanimate tool. In the wrong hands, either can cause tragedy. In the right hands, both can save lives. The problem isn’t the tool; it’s the misuse of it.
Yet the gun control lobby and much of the media work tirelessly to condition the public into associating guns with violence in every instance. Press releases, headlines, and speeches repeat “gun violence” like a mantra. Reporters, abandoning neutrality, act as uncritical mouthpieces for anti-gun groups. The result is a public conversation stuck on slogans, never digging into the deeper causes of crime.
Meanwhile, millions of Americans each year experience the tangible benefits of firearm ownership. Studies suggest anywhere from hundreds of thousands to over a million defensive gun uses annually. Ask the mother who stopped an intruder, the adult student who bought a shotgun after a break-in, or the single dad who carries because he knows the police can’t be everywhere.
To them, firearms aren’t symbols of violence; they’re tools of defense, security, and peace of mind.
That’s why the Second Amendment matters.
It’s not primarily about hunting or sport shooting, though those are important traditions. It’s about preserving the natural right of self-defense, recognized in our Declaration of Independence. And that right is never more vital than when government leaders refuse or fail to address the real causes of crime.
Stripping rights from law-abiding citizens has never reduced violence. If we want safer communities, we must confront what’s broken: fix our mental health system, address family breakdown, stop the revolving door of repeat offenders, and tackle the fentanyl crisis head-on. These are the real solutions. They’re not easy, but they work.
Words matter. And when politicians and activists hide behind slogans like “gun violence,” the cost is measured in lives. For nearly a century, layer upon layer of gun control has failed to make us safer. It’s time for a course correction. Stop playing word games and start facing the human behaviors and policy failures driving crime in America. Anything less is just political theater at the expense of public safety.
John Velleco is the Executive Vice President of Gun Owners of America.
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