All the confirmed dead are football players. I’m not going to speculate on whether it was premeditated, but it does seem to be at least somewhat targeted.

So while a car could cause significant harm or death, to say that he could have killed as many kids with a car seems to ignore a pretty obvious factor in this case, that this doesn’t appear to be random. Cars travel significantly slower than bullets, which makes it harder to target specific individuals (unless they are all grouped together and can’t see you coming).

Look at the incident in Charlottesville a few years ago, while there were far more injuries there was only one (obviously unfortunate) death.

And to your prior point about hand wringing, I would argue that the hand wringing is a response to the fact that guns are routinely the instrument of choice in these types of incidents. If he had driven his car into a group of football players then there wouldn’t be a big uproar about guns, but the point is he didn’t. As you said guns are easier, not just to commit this specific type of targeted violence, but they are also easier to obtain (at least legally) than the car you choose as a comparison, without the need for licensure, insurance, etc.

So yes, a vehicle can cause significant harm, but until it becomes the method of choice for those choosing to commit such violence, maybe focus on the “easy” method commonly utilized