Time and time again, we have a horrific shooting, and it’s immediately followed by howls of gun control from the usual suspects. They’re reacting to the horrific event, which I understand. Unlike most of them, I actually have lost someone I cared about in a mass shooting. I remember my reaction to learning of a dear friend’s murder, and at that moment even I questioned my stance on the Second Amendment.

I don’t think that’s an unnatural reaction. It was momentary, but it happened. That’s why I won’t judge some folks too harshly for wanting gun control at a moment like this.

But some people, I will judge harshly. I judge them harshly because they prey on events like this. They jump up and down, probably with joy in their hearts, because now they can scream at the top of their lungs just how right they are about everything.

They look to politicians and demand they “ignore the NRA” and “do what’s right.”

People like this never stop to imagine that anyone could actually believe in the Second Amendment. They can’t fathom the idea that someone may actually believe that private firearm ownership is a sacred right and shouldn’t be infringed. They can’t even comprehend that someone might think gun control isn’t really the solution to a problem like mass shootings.

It’s funny, in a sick, sad way.

At a time like this, they expect politicians to throw off the principles they campaigned on and support gun control. The very thing they would criticize an elected official from their side for doing.

What happened in Parkland, Florida yesterday was horrific. The English language lacks the words to correctly convey just how horrible an event something like that is. I have a son in high school, and while Parkland isn’t particularly close, it’s also not particularly far away from here. This is playing on my mind.

However, despite the number of people encouraging folks like me to change our mind on gun control and my own history with losing someone to a mass shooting, I remain resolute in my support of the Second Amendment.

Yet I know a lot of people who will take a pragmatic approach to Second Amendment issues. They’d gladly make it harder to get an AR-15 if they thought for a moment that it would end school shootings, if for no other reason than to make the gun control crowd leave the rest of the firearms world alone.

But we also understand that isn’t the case.

First, even if we could make every AR-15 on Earth disappear, it wouldn’t end school shootings. It wouldn’t even make them less lethal. Remember that Virginia Tech, which was far more deadly than Parkland, had a shooter who carried two pistols. There wasn’t a single semi-automatic rifle in his arsenal. Ban the AR-15, and nothing will change.

Second, there’s the fact that even if it did end school shootings forever, it wouldn’t end the march of gun control. They wouldn’t leave us alone. They continue to try and take away our God-given right to keep and bear arms. For all their talk about “common sense gun control,” we know what the endgame is. They, as a group, want them all.

So despite the atrocity that occurred on Wednesday in Parkland, Florida, we’re not going to give up any ground. We’re not going to budge. We’re not going to give even one more inch of ground.

Especially since so few of these people who are demanding action are willing to talk about our mental health system or delve into the other causes of violence.

Because a lot of them don’t really care about the loss of life. They just want to take away people’s guns.