“If the DCCC is willing to give up a key issue and offend virtually every Democrat so as not to bother eight Independents in rural Missouri, they’re even more incompetent than we thought, and Democrats should be very worried about the midterms,” Glaze said.

Gun violence prevention activists said they were disappointed the DCCC was advising candidates not to aggressively talk about policy solutions as often as possible. Ladd Everitt, director of the gun violence prevention group One Pulse for America, described the DCCC email as “pathetic.” Mark Glaze, senior adviser to the group Guns Down, said it was “straight out of the NRA’s talking points.”

“You and your candidate will be understandably outraged and upset, as will your community. However, DO NOT POLITICIZE IT TODAY,” DCCC regional press secretary Evan Lukaske wrote to candidates in the Northeast. “There will be time for politics and policy discussion, but any message today should be on offering thoughts/prayers for victims and their families, and thanking 1st responders who saved lives.”…

If you spend any time on social media, you’ve probably already seen the pushback against “thoughts and prayers” in response to a mass shooting. For instance:

To my colleagues: your cowardice to act cannot be whitewashed by thoughts and prayers. None of this ends unless we do something to stop it. — Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) October 2, 2017

By that standard, the DCCC are cowards recommending their own candidates act like cowards. Here’s another meme that’s become popular on the left:

Your thoughts and prayers arriving via express garbage truck, Pence! How much soap does it take to was the NRA blood money off your hands? pic.twitter.com/dtVRb1Tlvc — George Wilson (@georgew32951) February 15, 2018

HuffPost reports the DCCC would not say whether they had sent out a similar email after the Parkland shooting but pointed out that candidates were free to ignore their advice.

I don’t know who leaked this to HuffPost but it’s probably a safe bet it was someone who would like to see the DCCC take a more activist stance on this issue in 2018. As I noted yesterday, a majority of Democrats in the House seem ready to go all in on this message, promising to ban semi-automatic weapons in exchange for electoral victory.