One thing you can trust a leftist politician to do is to blame guns for any and all ills within a community. No matter what, guns are responsible for the problems and evils of the world. Violence would magically disappear if only there were no guns.

And unicorn farts would power the entire city.

The latest example of this delusion comes from the mayor of St. Louis:

Guns are at fault for a rise in homicides in the nation’s second-most dangerous city, and are causing a “crisis,” its mayor said.

“The level of violence in our city is at a crisis level,” St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson said at a press conference in its City Hall on Friday. “I think it is apparent to most of us that we are awash in guns,” Krewson said. “They’re being used to settle differences, defend territory, retaliate, take cars, do holdups.”

The “crisis” she referred to was the city’s reaching its highest number of homicides this year –– 197, she said (but 196 on the police department’s website) –– since 1995, when that number was 204. The majority remain unsolved. As a next step, Krewson announced a gun buyback program –– citizens bring in their guns, the plan goes, and in exchange, receive grocery store gift certificates. It’s set to begin as early as next week.

But critics say the city’s problems run deeper than guns, and that the city has tried this approach several times only to see crime continue to creep upwards. (Studies reflect that view.)

“I think she’s trying something she feels is going to be effective, but in reality we just know that they’re not,” State Representative Bruce Franks told Newsweek. In 1991, the city did a major buyback program, in which thousands of guns were taken off the streets. That same year, Franks’ brother was killed by a gunshot.

“A lot of those turned out to be antiques,” he said. “We’re seeing, go turn your guns in and then what?” Franks said the city should focus on adding resources to communities with high crime rates, which he said would make guns “irrelevant.”

The critics are right.

Guns are simply objects. They have no free will. They don’t act on their own volition. Someone has to operate them.

That is where you find the problem, with people.

Yes, guns don’t kill people, people kill people and all that. Yes, it’s almost cliche at this point, but it’s also right.

If you have a dangerous community like a Chicago or St. Louis, you’re not going to solve anything by blaming the guns. They’re already there and you’re not going to get them absent some very unconstitutional measures like kicking in every door and searching every home. Good luck with that.

Buyback programs sound good, but they don’t work. The only way a criminal turns in a gun is if it was used in a homicide or something like that and they need to ditch it. Getting a gift card beats throwing it in a pond, after all. But that’s about the extent of what happens. That’s the sum total of “good” being performed with these buyback programs.

Meanwhile, politicians can pat themselves on the back and feel good, feel like they’re making a difference, while actually accomplishing absolutely nothing.

If you want to combat violence in your community, you need to dig deep into the roots of where that violence comes from. Otherwise, you’re just slapping a band-aid on an amputation.