With regard to proposed legislation enabling gun violence victims to sue gun manufacturers , Sanders said , " If somebody has a gun and it falls into the hands of a murderer and the murderer kills somebody with a gun , do you hold the gun manufacturer responsible ? Not any more than you would hold a hammer company responsible if somebody beats somebody over the head with a hammer . " Sanders has said , " we have millions of people who are gun owners in this country -- 99.9 % of those people obey the law . I want to see real , serious debate and action on guns , but it is not going to take place if we simply have extreme positions on both sides . I think I can bring us to the middle . " Following the Las Vegas shooting in October 2017 , Sanders was one of twenty-four senators to sign a letter to National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins espousing the view that it was critical the NIH " dedicate a portion of its resources to the public health consequences of gun violence " at a time when 93 Americans die per day from gun-related fatalities and noted that the Dickey Amendment did not prohibit objective , scientific inquiries into shooting death prevention
Las Vegas shooting
2017 Las Vegas shooting
Political positions of Bernie Sanders