What happened yesterday was truly tragic, and I am not using it as an opportunity to talk about gun control. Rather, because a country full of imbeciles are using yesterday as a reason to talk about gun control laws, I’m addressing the topic that others stupidly put on the table.

First, exceptions and hard cases make bad law. Second, the city with a long experiment with the strictest gun control laws in the country, my hometown, Chicago, also suffers from the most gun violence. Again: long history of ridiculously ‘strong’ gun laws AND the most gun violence. In other words, ‘strong’ gun control does not correlate to less gun violence. This isn’t opinion; it is science and history, and it’s true beyond Chicago.

Finally, if the reports thus far are reasonably accurate, than the perpetrator of yesterday’s infamy acquired the weapons he used in a manner that no law could have prevented. (Supposedly, he stole them from his mother after killing her.)

If I had the option of sending my child to a school where each classroom was equipped with a 9mm handgun and each teacher was well-equipped to handle it, provided of course that there be strong safety measures in place, or to a school that was a ‘gun-free zone,’ I’d send my daughter to the former.

Why? Because good people with guns stop bad people with guns. Empty-handed good guys get mowed down next to children. Utopia this is not, nor can it ever be. And pragmatism trumps naivety every day.

Maria Goretti, pray for us.