This morning a hero died, Arnaud Beltrame, the gendarme who exchanged himself for a hostage, knowing he had little chance of coming out of the siege alive. He didn’t. His assassin was not a hero, or a martyr, though that is how he wanted to be remembered. He was a small time delinquent with a great big chip on his shoulder. I don’t much care whether he represents his co-religionists or not, whether he was a good or a deluded Muslim. He used religion as an excuse to go on a rampage and rob others of their lives, but he could just as easily have used a political ideology, or the kind of nauseating notions that don’t deserve the title of ideology.

The US gun control debate has no place in this tragic episode, and the recuperation of these deaths for their own ends by the pro-shooters sickens me. Gun…