Alex Hribal, the 16-year-old student who stabbed 22 people at his Pennsylvania high school yesterday, is in a state of confusion and depression — that according to his lawyer in an interview with ABC News.

And even though there are several kids still in the hospital recovering, some ideologues can’t help but exploit this tragedy to make cheap political points. Somewhat remarkably, they’re choosing to use this event to push an anti-gun agenda, and they’re doing it because when something like this happens, it shoots a huge hole in their main argument.

You see, some folks like to go after guns especially after any type of shooting. And by go after guns, I mean try to make it harder for law abiding citizens to own a gun and, in some cases, just try to ban certain guns. They have an emotional reaction (an understandable one) that they try to turn into policy before their emotions subside. The unemotional response to a shooting (the response you should have when dictating policy) is that these things happen, unfortunately, and you have to scrutinize the bad guy, not the weapon. The weapon didn’t kill anyone; the person using it did.

Now, we can use the emotional argument the anti-gun folks use all the time and say, we should ban all knifes… look at all the bad they do… they’re used to stab innocent victims. Though I suppose I thought it, I’d never come on this show a day or two after it happens and try to make that point. I have some class. Not everyone does.

Michael Daly of the Daily Beast is coming out in an article trying to combat that very knife-banning argument before we make it (not that we would) because he knows he’s vulnerable when it comes to that response being applied to guns.

He writes of a hero named Nate Scimio — who was wounded protecting his two friends Lindsay and Trinity. Trinity tweeted out: “Without Nate, me and Lindsay would’ve been injured and there’s not enough words to describe how much of a hero he is.”

Daly writes, “Scimio most likely had instinctively thrown up that now wounded arm to ward off the attacker’s blade. The impulse would have done nothing to deflect a bullet, which would likely have torn through his arm and into him.”

He continues, shamefully, “Had there been a gun at Franklin High, the dead might very well have included the school safety guard known to the students as Sarge, who was stabbed in the stomach while trying to stop the attack. The very brave vice principal, Sam King, who then jumped in, might have been killed before he subdued the 16-year-old suspect.”

Finally: “Nobody could have outrun a bullet if the suspect had been armed with a gun, but anybody who managed to stay outside the reach of the blades escaped injury.”

And as he uses these victims as pawns because he’s an anti-gun ideologue with absolute no shame, he of course fails to acknowledge the reality that if this kid Hribal spent a mere second longer on each of his victims, they too would be dead.

Like the 17-year-old boy who was stabbed with in his abdomen. It was apparently two inches wide and extended almost to his spine. The blade pierced his liver and diaphragm, and missed his heart and aorta by just a fraction of an inch, writes Daly. If Hribal spent an extra second on this victim, this kid would likely be dead. (Would Michael Daly then write about banning knives?)

A knife can kill as many or as little people as a gun can — it all depends on how you use it. And, as is the case with a shooter, it all depends on the bad guy and how he intends to do his harm.

Michael Daly of the Daily Beast… not above using underage stabbing victims as pawns to exploit for political gain.