If your prime counter-example is a domestic terrorist from almost twenty years go, it seems you're reaching — especially when the number of people killed by guns in that same time frame is much, much higher.
The analogy falls apart for other reasons. Yes, you are still "free" to buy fertilizer — but there are now restrictions on (and monitoring of) purchases of that type of fertilizer. You can rent a box truck — but try using your "freedom" to park one in front of a government building. (Also: it was diesel fuel, not racing fuel.)
And all of those things — fertilizer, diesel, box trucks — are used by millions of people in ways that have nothing to do with blowing up buildings.
Gun control is, in fact, people control — in that it ties to keep demonstrably (indeed, intentionally) deadly weapons out of situations and the hands of people where tragedy can occur. Yes, absolutely, murderers will murder with or without a gun — but there's a reason why most murderers go with the gun option: guns are fast, effective, work from a distance, and can target multiple people in very short order.
I don't kid myself that if only we ban all guns then we'll have puppies and unicorns and all sing "Kumbaya" together. Gun control is not a complete solution, nor is it the only tack we need to be taking — better mental health care* and prison rehabilitation** would go a long way toward eliminating some of the drivers toward violence that guns enable to be all the more deadly.
But it is blindingly clear that enabling factor of guns also needs to be factored in. Guns don't kill people — but they make it a lot easier for folks who want to kill people, or threaten to kill them, to do so. Yes, we should enforce the laws on the book more strenuously — but those laws have been purposefully watered down to allow loopholes for purchases, and to prevent or greatly hinder any sort of record-keeping or coordination between states and the feds to track problematic sellers or buyers, and other laws have been passed to prohibit or defund government efforts to even study the problem. Let's tackle that part, first, and then see where we are. But let's not just pretend that, because one heinous crime was committed without use of guns that guns — or, at least, their high availability for misuse — aren't a problem.
Unfortunately, any discussion of any sort of action that might help us control access to guns, or what sorts of firearms are needed in society to protect people from whatever people feel they need guns for, is apparently completely off the table, because the NRA and their firearms-industry-funded ilk immediately turn it into a huge conspiracy about how That Man in the White House and his thugs are going to take all our guns, throw us into prison camps, and do unspeakable acts to our womenfolk. Because only Adolph Hitler ever took away people's guns, and Timothy McVeigh didn't even use one.
[* Of course, I suspect a lot of the "the government is going to steal my gun just like the Nazis did" crowd will then start to shout that "the government is going to lock me up in an asylum for disagreeing with them, just like the Soviets did." See also: anti-vaxxers and parental rights fanatics.]
[** We often conflate, in the gun control / violence issue, "crazy" murderers and the use of guns by criminals. Trying to solve one doesn't help much with the other. Gun violence in the US is symptomatic of a lot of societal problems, and they all need to be solved. By the same token, a high fever is symptomatic of a lot of diseases, and usually the first thing doctors try to do is bring the fever down before they start tackling the underlying causes.]
Reshared post from +Walt Armour
#GUN_CONTROL_IS_PEOPLE_CONTROL
Gunny Major @GulfWarVet123 May 22
McVeigh needed no gun & neither does a terrorist. Fight back! Enlist: U.S. FREEDOM ARMY at http://USFREEDOMARMY.COM . pic.twitter.com/fURaZRu86J
