I think I see what you are trying to do here, but I don't find it particularly effective. When people say stuff like "guns don't kill people, people kill people," in my experience they usually mean something like "what is happening to our society that (apparently) many more people are deciding to go shoot a lot of people? Isn't that a better thing to investigate than guns, given that gun control laws haven't (typically) been loosened over the years?"

In this framing, the article is analyzing exactly the same question, so it doesn't make sense to try to deflect it - it's already seeking the explanation as the deflection you are mocking.

And for what it's worth, it seems valuable to try to understand what is going on - why are there so many people that become mass shooters? Has this rate increased?