Talking points
Parkland survivors: Conservatives hit back
The survivors of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting “are still under attack,” said Laurie Roberts in The Arizona Republic. Rather than engage with the young activists’ “impassioned call” for tighter gun-control laws, conservatives panicked by their eloquence have showered them with personal smears, vitriol, and ad hominem attacks. Fox News host Laura Ingraham last week mocked Parkland student David Hogg for being rejected by four colleges despite his 4.2 GPA. Hogg then called for advertisers to boycott her show, and at least 19 companies obliged—forcing the right-wing provocateur to apologize and take a week’s vacation. The attacks on the Parkland kids began with far-right conspiracy theorists, said Jeet Heer in NewRepublic.com, and then spread to mainstream conservatives. Some falsely claimed Hogg wasn’t even at school during the Valentine’s Day shooting, and that he and his fellow activists are actually actors hired by liberal adults. Emma González, another activist Parkland survivor, was sneeringly described by a Republican candidate for the Maine State House as a “skinhead lesbian.”
“When you choose to enter the public arena, no one is above criticism,” said Joseph Wulfsohn in TheFederalist.com. In his simplistic antigun campaign, Hogg has described the National Rifle Association as “child murderers” and called Republicans who disagree with him “sick f---ers” with blood on their hands. Throwing out insults and smears is Hogg’s prerogative—but liberals can’t complain when this “bully” receives a little back. The media and gun-control activists are “using” Hogg as “their sword and their shield,” said David French in NationalReview.com. They egg him on to say “vicious, cruel, and often false things” about gun-rights advocates, and then claim conservatives who respond are “attacking the Parkland kids.” These teens are “powerful” only because they’re doing the work of “powerful adults.”
Actually, the Parkland teens are “winning the culture war,” said Benjamin Hart in NYMag.com. Their passion and organizing ability has “supercharged the gun-reform movement.” Polls show large majorities of Americans support their stated goals of universal background checks and banning assault-style rifles and large-capacity magazines. The “Gunshine State” of Florida has adopted several new restrictions on firearms. Walmart and other stores are limiting their gun sales. As the saying goes, when you’re “personally attacking the survivors of a school shooting, you’re losing.”