Because of this past month's most popular topic — the mass shooting that occurred at Pulse in Orlando, Florida, the gun control issue has — yet again — struck a nerve in a vast amount of people. Thus dividing the population into two sides: those who favor guns and those who believe they should be outlawed. What is often forgotten is the popular saying that is nothing but truth: guns don't kill people, people kill people. It's not the guns' fault that they are used for murder at times. It's not like the inanimate object can pull the trigger and lodge a bullet inside of someone by itself. No, there must be some aid in that department by none other than someone (or something) applying that pressure on said trigger. So no, guns aren't the reason. People are. It wasn't just the AR-15 alone that harmed those innocents at Pulse — no, it was Omar Mateen who was the offender behind the gun. Without Mateen, 49 people would not be dead.

If guns are outlawed because they can be used to kill people, why not outlaw knives because they can be used to stab someone, which can also result in death. Or what about cigarettes because they can cause breathing issues and/or cancer. Or better yet, X-ray machines because they cause radiation issues. How about medications because they can be abused and people can overdose on them? Or vehicles because they are liable to cause tragic accidents. Water should definitely be gotten rid of, because one can drown in it whether directly by someone else or indirectly. Good lord, let's outlaw everything because gosh darn it, everything is liable to cause death to humans in some sort of way. Have you not seen "1000 Ways To Die?" Literally everything can cause bodily harm and/or death. So if by using the pro-gun control side's reasoning on the matter, everything should be outlawed. But will everything really be outlawed? No. Because that's just silly.

Speaking of anti-gun control, an interesting article topic has been circulating the past few days: "Gun shop to raffle off AR-15 to benefit Orlando shooting victims." The name itself caused my curiosity to click on it, because — let's face it — it seems like a jab at what happened in Orlando; it seemed too messed up to ignore. But what I read made me agree with the gun shop owners.

This particular gun shop, Second Amendment Sports located in McHenry, Ohio, decided to sell tickets to raffle off their most popular product and donate all proceeds to the victims of the Orlando shooting. Their most popular product just so happened to be an AR-15, nearly an exact replica of the weapon Mateen used to commit his crime. Many people became distraught over this, particularly because it's an AR-15, as well as a gun raffle in general in honor of a shooting. Understandable. But Second Amendment Sports was donating all proceeds made to the Orlando victims and, well, guns tend to raise a lot of money because they are, in fact, quite pricey objects to get a hold of. It also makes sense to raffle off whatever their most popular product was in order to raise quite a lot of funds for the good of the cause. So it happened to be an AR-15 ... it's not their fault that people prefer this type of gun.

“We wanted to do something for the loss of lives and injuries that happened to people in Orlando,” said co-owner of Second Amendment Sports, Bert Irslinger Jr. At least the establishment cared enough to want to do something to monetarily benefit the victims. They didn't have to do anything at all, just saying. In fact, in addition to whatever is accrued from the benefit raffle, Second Amendment Sports will be adding an extra $2000 to it (Chicago Tribune).

“I understand that there are different opinions out there,” said store marketing director Vic Santi. “We don’t look at this as a gun issue. We look at this as a terrorism issue” (Rolling Stone). Which it is: a terrorism issue. It has been confirmed that Mateen had pledged his allegiance to ISIS when his crime was committed.

Again, guns do not kill people, it takes someone behind the gun to commence the killing. If someone throws a ball and it hits you, you wouldn't blame the ball, right? It's the same thing. If guns are outlawed for this reason, what makes pro-gun control advocates believe it won't follow the route that "illegal" drugs did. After all, cocaine, heroin, acid, meth, etc are technically illegal, but yet they are all still around and circulating around the US.

As my grandfather has always said, if you outlaw guns then only the outlaws will have guns. And how safe would you feel then? No matter how much you want to protest, guns will always still be around, illegal or not.