Was the woman with a rifle they shot at, subsequently hitting her son, also an off-duty cop? Maybe she was a relevant gun owner.

The whole right wing has a perpetual sedition boner.

We were never the customer, we were always the product.

Joke's on them: can't get blood from a turnip, which is what I figure I'll be reincarnated as with my Karma.

I mean, I am thoroughly unconvinced that any amount of damning evidence will erode his suppose among Republicans. He just has to keep running the same plays and claim it's "fake news", that it was some kind of deep fake, let QAnon float around a conspiracy, or even at this point maybe even sit back and let the base contort itself from condemning the move to hailing it as a political master stroke of putting pressure on an American adversary.

Or I'll even take it a different direction. Say the janitor is single, lives a minimalistic lifestyle, and gives money to anti-war causes or politicians actively trying to regulate these weapons.

Can we quantify morality? Is there enough of an ethical net gain here to absolve them?

Am I saying anything about the general population's right to own a gun? Am I even implying anything about it? No. Nor am I equating the shooter to the "good guy with a gun", or saying that anybody other than the cops directly had anything to do with the child being shot.

What I am pointing out though is that either this woman came into legal and rightful possession of a gun, or otherwise obtained it illegally, both of which are relevant to a conversation on gun control.

If the cops directly shot the child without there being the presence of a firearm near the child, then that would be a fairly different conversation. And yeah, the parent comment may have assumed the "good guy with the gun" was not a cop, but instead a citizen. However, with these being cops, and their decision to shoot spawning from a citizen with a firearm who had intent to use that firearm to harm innocent people, it is still valid for there to be a gun control debate, because if you take her gun out of the equation, there likely was not going to be a police initiated shooting in this situation.