Early this month, the Trump administration said it would look to ban vaping products some time within the next few months. “We can’t allow people to get sick,” Trump said. “And we can’t have our kids be so affected.”

It seems outrageous that the President of the United States can overtly contradict himself and have people toss their hands up in consensus like they had just heard the most passionate preaching of their lives.

Sure, it makes sense to place regulations or even ban vaping products completely, because nine people have died. However, it makes absolutely no sense how one can be anti-vape and pro-gun. Vapes have killed nine people. Guns have killed 10,973 in 2019 alone.

Some people on the right argue the solution to end gun violence in the United States is to put more effort into studying mental health. Because, of course, people kill people, not guns. But with this ideology, instead of banning vapes, shouldn’t the country look more into nicotine addiction and what can cause it at a young age?

By banning vapes, Trump is admitting he is a hypocrite. He is admitting that vapes kill people. Not nicotine addiction. Not lung disease. Vapes.

The biggest problem in our country is what is killing us in the biggest numbers and most rapidly. Guns. “People will always get their hands on them,” gun advocates argue. “The only thing that can kill a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun,” gun advocates boast.

Tell that to the Philadelphia Police Department, who in August, with 50 officers, were unable to stop a gunman for eight hours in a standoff which wounded six.

This nonsense has gone on far too long, and Trump’s hypocritical statements are a slap in the face of anyone who has ever mourned one of America’s tragic shootings.

Talk about self-interest. Trump is doing this because his administration backs it. He doesn’t care about the lives of American children; otherwise he and his administration would have passed some form of gun regulation the moment he stepped into office. Or at least after 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018 with an AR-15 and gunned down 14 innocent children and three staff members.

Enough is enough. Until the day our current presidential administration can prioritize the regulation of the tool responsible for 2019’s 10,973 gun related deaths over vapes, responsible for nine, our country is destined for catastrophe.