I had to turn off Twitter yesterday after the video of the Jacksonville Landing shooting surfaced.

I had to leave it for the day because as this video was making the rounds, politicians and activists were already jumping on the story like hyenas on a wounded animal in order to push the anti-gun agenda they’ve come to know and love. It was hard enough to listen to the painful and panicked screams of the victims in the video, but watching as these victims were turned into a political talking point right after their deaths elevated my anger to a level that made it hard for me to think straight.

Having a conversation, a heated debate, or even an all caps screaming match with someone on social media over an issue is fine, but I’ve always felt dirty from being thrust into the middle of a political debate even as families are just then learning that one of their members will never be coming home again.

I’ve given up on hoping that society will come to a more respectful conclusion when atrocities like this happen. When you’re disconnected from a horrific event by multiple forms of distance (physical, emotional, digital, etc), you tend to forget that people are having the worst day of their lives, and you begin to speak out about your topical opinion.

For the media, politicians, and activists, blood spilled on the ground by a malicious gun-wielder is a hot iron that needs to be struck. It’s disgusting, especially since it seems like these lives that were taken aren’t really human lives to them. The fact that they’re willing to turn the slain into props for their agenda at the first sign of a shooting strongly suggests this for me.

For those who immediately resort to agenda pushing and party promoting before the victims’ blood has time to even dry, I feel as if the victims are little more than handy statistics.

Whatever has to be done for party and platform, then it must be done! Ben Howe pointed this out perfectly after Alyssa Milano got the news about Jacksonville and immediately pointed people to the nearest voting booth to elect Democrats.

We don't even have a final number of fatalities yet and we're already getting "honor the dead by voting Democrat" tweets. Tribalism is a cancer. https://t.co/UWhMxxUCai

— Ben Howe (@BenHowe) August 26, 2018

But since the mud has already started flying, I’m now forced to start defending rights, and distributing actual facts so that bad narratives don’t thrive in a vacuum and influence public opinion with falsehoods.

Milano, and people who agree with her, are pushing for policies that will get more people killed. As I’ve highlighted before in a handy video, the idea that we will ever get rid of guns in the United States is a pipe dream. The development of our nation involved guns, and we have continued to manufacture and collect them as a country for decades and decades. They’re not going anyway, even if you made them illegal tomorrow.

All the anti-gun supporters are doing is advocating the for the disarmament of law-abiding citizens. That leaves on those who don’t care so much about the laws to be the ones who are armed. Furthermore, the idea that gun-free zones can solve the problem is so myopic that it’s a wonder the politicians and the media push it with a straight face.

This is especially plain when we have data right in front of our faces that show that over 98 percent of mass shootings happen in gun-free zones according to the FBI. We can now toss the Jacksonville shooting up on that list.

Let’s add to the fact that mass shootings are statistically rare, and you’re more likely to die falling out of bed or from being constipated than you are from being caught off-guard by a mad gunman.

The solution, as so many have discussed ad nauseum, is simple. Eliminate gun-free zones, and put armed security at events, or where people are going to gather. As it turns out, humanity has members within it who are mentally unstable, or follow ideologies that inspire them to do harm to others. The good news is that it’s been repeatedly proven that armed citizens do a great job of stopping nefarious people with murderous intent. It happens far more often than the media gives it credit for, and these incidents vastly outnumber mass shootings.

But I’ve had to talk about all of this before. I have to every time a mass shooting happens even thought I’d rather hold off until all the information comes in, and the families have had a moment to process the tremendous loss that they just suffered. Yet here I am, once again, reducing the slain to more statistics right alongside the gun-grabbers in an effort to defend myself, fellow gun owners, and our very rights against political cheap shots masked as righteous fury and virtuous problem solving.

It’s hard for me to take calls for gun banning and confiscation seriously when it comes from people who don’t seem to give half a rat’s ass about people murdered by illegal immigrants like Mollie Tibbetts, or believe that unrestricted abortion on demand should be a right. Who believe that killing off babies with Down syndrome is perfectly reasonable, or think someone shooting someone else’s children falls within acceptable bounds because they disagree with them politically, like those who attack Dana Loesch.

Again, it’s not about people, it’s about the agenda. Too many signs point to this.

Their concern isn’t virtuous, it’s virtue signaling, and I’m sick of being dragged into the mud with people who are part of the problem.