As the situation develops in Alexandria, Va., where a gunman opened fire on GOP Congressional members as they practiced for tomorrow’s annual Congressional charity baseball game, a lot of emotional reactions have flooded the social media sphere. But one thing alone keeps welling up in my mind:

Thank God for the good guys (and women) with guns.

Republican Senator Rand Paul (Ky), who was there, and watched as the gunman rounded the 3rd base dugout, shooting a semi-automatic rifle, heading for the 1st base dugout where Congressmen were hiding behind the concrete blocks praying for escape, was right: the gunman was ambushing sitting ducks and it would have been a massacre.

Except it wasn’t, because Republican House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (La) is in the line of succession to the Oval Office and therefore had a small security detail with him. And early reports are they, with the help of other trained professionals, are why the gunman was critically wounded. One member of the Capitol Police force reportedly took the shooter down after being wounded himself.

As expected, there were early calls from gun control advocates — never ones to let a tragedy go to waste — to berate and shame people for not being wise enough to recognize that guns are the problem.

I wonder if you guys are ready to change your stance on gun control: Highly Doubtful

— Chanteliz (@chanteliz) June 14, 2017

Even Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe (D) used the press conference on the shooting this morning to call for more background checks and ending “gunshow loopholes.” (He also incorrectly stated that 93 million people are a victim of gun violence a day — twice — before being corrected by a reporter that the statistic is, in fact, 93 individuals a day).

As tacky as it is to pontificate on policy while victims and family members are still processing what is happening to them, it’s also ignoring that the reason no one died is ALSO due to the presence of guns in the hands of good people who put themselves in the way of harm in service to their country.

Gun control advocates never like to acknowledge that the control of guns does not obliterate the manufacture and sale of guns — they will always exist. Stripping the rights of good people to arm themselves makes us lambs to the slaughter when a James T. Hodgkinson shows up.

And anyway, gun control advocates don’t really seem that serious about their pet cause:

at this point i want trump to shoot someone on 5th avenue just so i can see republicans defend it https://t.co/7kfLFs4BEw

— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) May 15, 2017

Which is possibly why we find ourselves with GOP Congressional members targeted on a baseball field on a beautiful June morning in DC.

Anyway, thank God for good guys with guns.