What it highlights, along with all of the many cases like it, is that the arguments made against gun control come out of a sordidly romantic, disconnected form of ideological fetishism. I was told recently that my adjuvant desire to see an America free from civilian access to guns meant that I understood nothing about the meaning of freedom.

I mention that not as a challenge to anyone reading this who agrees with the sentiment with which I was confronted, simply to use the context here to ask that if you agree with me, that you arm yourself with words, thinking and humanity enough to argue the virtue and grace of a country reborn without the inevitable prevalence of this kind of tragic loss. The loss of Johanna Justin-Jinich, every child killed by its own hand holding its father's gun, every pupil, teacher, mother, father and hobo is a sacrifice on the alter of a codified and debased concept of freedom. It is a freedom to kill those from whose existence the civilian and the militiaman wishes to be freed.

I am so sorry for the loss of someone you were close to, and this article beautifully describes the vivid memories of a loved one.