Twenty One Pilots: Guns for Hands

Tyler Joseph, the lead singer in Twenty One Pilots, wrote the song Guns for Hands to help make the realization about how many people, especially kids, have depression and suicidal thoughts. That he is having trouble living his life while knowing what these kids are going through. It hits him even more, since he has gone through the same things that these kids are going through, and sometimes still does. He brings this issue forward, by sort of connected it to gang related problems, the usage of guns in gangs, and the guns for hands.

Tyler sings, "That you all ave guns/And you never put the safety on/And you all have plans/To take it, to take it, don't take it, take it, take it". Tyler compares the kids hands to guns and the gun's safety. in the way that they all have the power to conflict harm on themselves. The safety of a gun, is a blocking mechanism that does not allow the trigger to be pulled, not letting the gun to be fired. So when the kids aren't putting the safety on their hands, they are not taking it upon their selves to seek out help, or even just talk to someone about it. And they all have plans on pulling the trigger, to end their lives, but Tyler is telling them not to. Since they don't want to talk to someone, but obviously listen to his music, he is trying to tell them not to, to get the point across to them that there are other ways.

He later says in the chorus, "...I'm trying to sleep/But I can't, but I can't when you all/Have guns for hands". He is losing his sleep because of his thoughts about these kids. He worries about them, knowing that they can end it whenever they wanted to. Knowing that, disturbs him so much that it is keeping Tyler from sleeping.

In the third verse, He sings "We've turned our hands to guns, traded our thumbs for/ammunition". He's comparing all of these to tools. But the type of tool changes. Hands and thumbs are tools of creation that come together to work wonderfully. They are used for making things of greatness. While guns and ammunition, when put together, are tools for destruction, for ending things as people know it.