Gun control activists here in the United States maintain that if mass shooters didn’t have access to firearms, there wouldn’t be any mass shootings. They argue that kids would be able to go to school without worrying about being killed, that people could go to the mall without fear, and so on.

On the surface, that all sounds good. It’s why anti-gun efforts get a hefty bump in the aftermath of a high-profile mass shooting.

Gun rights activists, on the other hand, continue to maintain the problem is the killers themselves, not the tool they use.

Needless to say, this doesn’t sway a lot of people. It should, though, because if we were wrong, China wouldn’t be having the trouble it seems to be having.

As the United States routinely faces the tragedy of mass shootings, China is struggling to put an end to its own threat to public safety: indiscriminate stabbings.

Over the weekend, six people were killed and 14 injured after a knife-wielding man stabbed passersby on a pedestrian shopping street in the eastern Chinese city of Anqing. Videos circulating on social media show wounded pedestrians lying on the pavement, covered in blood.

Police quickly arrived at the scene and arrested the suspect, a 25-year-old unemployed man who was seeking to “vent anger over family troubles and pessimism,” according to a local government statement.

The incident is the latest among a spate of public attacks in China in recent months. With guns strictly controlled and out of reach for ordinary people, knives have become the most common weapon used in such atrocities.

In April, two children were killed when a knife-wielding man entered a kindergarten in southern China. An additional 14 children and two teachers were wounded, according to state news agency Xinhua. The police said the suspect had a history of schizophrenia — a serious mental illness characterized by symptoms of psychosis.

In December, another mass stabbing in a small city in northeastern Liaoning province left seven people dead and another seven injured. State media reported the 62-year-old suspect was socially withdrawn after losing his son and getting divorced, and carried out the attack to express his “dissatisfaction towards society.”

Interesting.

Of course, anti-gunners routinely claim that you can’t kill as many people with a knife as you can with a firearm, but let’s look at these examples provided by CNN, an agency we know has no interest in defending the Second Amendment.

Over the weekend, six people were killed and 14 people injured in a knife attack. That’s a bloodier attack than the King Sooper’s shooting in Colorado Springs where the killer there killed six and wounded no one before taking his own life.

All are worse than the first and the third examples are more deadly than the Orange, California shooting that claimed four lives. The same can be said of the shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola in 2019 or the shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival earlier that same year.

These are all high-profile shootings that were less deadly than some of the knife attacks in China.

And let’s remember that China is one of the most tightly controlled countries on the planet. Its dictatorial regime doesn’t really believe in personal freedom. They have every “advantage” in trying to address mass killings, and yet they too are powerless.

Why?

Because, as we’ve been trying to tell you, it’s not about the tool, it’s about the tool using it. Evil people will commit evil acts and you’re not about to stop it anytime soon, but especially if you simply focus on the weapon and ignore the true evil behind these acts. If a totalitarian regime is unable to keep these things from happening, what hope does a freedom-loving society have?

Well, believe it or not, there is a chance.

See, we can criticize what our government does. It also means we can propose alternative solutions, such as delving into what makes mass killers like these dipsticks tick. Let’s find out what’s broken within them so we can learn how to first identify it and then, hopefully, fix it. To do that, though, we have to stop pretending guns are the root of all evil and recognize that the problem is and has always been people.