The Gun Debate

The right wing, I have  often  noticed, speaks with one voice.  This is a very effective political tactic in the short term, and it has got them to where they are today, but that won’t last.  Progress may come in fits and starts, but it is the general direction of history and conservatism is rowing against the current.
The left wing, on the other hand, is made up of so many different opinions it is  difficult to keep straight.  It is frustrating and irritating to argue with right wingers, but it is actually  more difficult to argue with left wingers, because  each one has a different view of what kind of world we’re working  toward.  There are feminists, and vegetarians, and more genders than I  ever knew existed, and Luddites, and Buddhists, and people who speak Klingon.
Anyway, back to the  ‘one voice’ thing.  It’s kind of not working for them in  the current, post-Parkland gun debate.  First, they all jumped on  the ‘mental health’ bandwagon, and it was so instant it had to be orchestrated.  The comments from Republican politicians and from my gun loving Facbook friends appeared almost simultaneously.  The mental  health argument didn’t work too well  for them, though, because a lot of liberals said “O.K., let’s talk about mental health.  Wouldn’t you agree that we  should keep guns away from mentally ill  people?”  (I was stunned at how many people answered “no”), and we pointed  out that Trump had made it easier for crazy people  to get guns.
They may have been a bit surprised at how quickly the Parkland student body turned activist (I know I  was) but they wasted  no  time in attacking them.  Being used by George Soros, they said.  Paid actors, they said.  And now, one Texas School district is threatening to expel students who walk out to protest school shootings, which is a mindless response (expelling students from school because they are leaving school), but not surprising, because right wingers speak  with one  voice.
The paid actor thing is a particularly stupid charge, because (as in every  school everywhere) the students know the other students and every student at Parkland High knows that Emma Gonzales and David Hogg are students at their school.
But, they don’t care.  “Throw enough shit at the wall and some of it’s bound to stick” has been their strategy for a long time.  Though this argument is laughable, and was swiftly debunked, they’ll have moved on  to another by morning.  Because they all speak with one voice.