Conservative media’s frequent homogeneity can be a proselytizing asset, especially in helping Second Amendment diehards fend off gun control pushes. It’s more disciplined and far more passionate than the left in what’s a policy version of Muhammad Ali’s rope-a-dope against George Foreman. Gun control advocates punch themselves out.

Thus it makes its response to the Las Vegas massacre’s predictable call for more restrictive gun laws all the more curious: for the moment it’s lost the mojo of de facto consensus—at least according to a smart chronicler of right-leaning media.

Will Sommer, a writer at The Hill, produces a weekly newsletter called Right Richter that surveys the conservative press. What for some might be the inevitable basis for a Ativan, Xanax or Valium prescription is an enjoyable side gig for Sommer. And, in the wake of Las Vegas, he’s surprised to not find the usual thematic consistency in the right’s response.

He writes, “The pro-Trump media hasn’t latched onto an alternative narrative—at least not yet. Instead, the right-wing media increasingly reacts to news that’s bad for its side like a defense attorney: not by presenting its own alternative explanation, but by “raising questions” and highlighting inconsistencies and niggling facts in the other side’s story.”

“This time around, they’ve opening the floodgates to any minor detail that contradicts the Las Vegas stories from the mainstream media and police, even when those details also contradict one another. It’s theorizing like cooking spaghetti, where they throw a whole lot of bizarre, often contradictory ideas at the wall and hope some of it sticks.”

Now it seems open to anything, no matter how small, that contradicts anything reporting by the “mainstream media.” Gateway Pundit depended on a 4Chan post that misidentified the shooter’s name and maintained that he was a “far-left loon.” Alex Jones pushed ISIS’ claim that it was their act and he claimed an exclusive that the shooter’s hotel room was filled with antifa propaganda. Mike Cernovich, another conservative conspiracist, finds it curious that no hotel video of the shooter has been released (ah, Mike, it’s an ongoing investigation, not a revival of “America’s Most Wanted.”).

But the lack of consensus doesn’t mean the right’s impact is negligible. “The advantage of seeding 1,000 theories, on the other hand, is that any single one can be disproven while still creating a sense of skepticism about a massacre.”

“It doesn’t matter if the audience believes any of it, per se. What’s important is to make the situation so muddled that the average person, already primed over years to distrust the traditional media, can shrug their shoulders about what ‘the real truth’ is and move on.”

But there are natural reflexes at play, especially on guns. If he’d delayed this week’s newsletter a day, he could have seen this morning’s Breitbart opus chagrined with word that “On Wednesday Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said a hearing on banning bump-stock devices is ‘worthwhile.’” You know Cornyn, that flag-hating socialist from Texas (not).

But he and other Republicans mentioning the possibility of taking some gun control baby steps are derided as wayward by the author, , “the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio.”

Sen. Ron Johnson, a rather uninspired and decidedly conservative Wisconsin Republican Senator, is really taken to task for calling for a ban. Hawkins did a tsk, tsk finger-waving at Johnson. “1. Bump stock devices do not turn semiautomatics into automatic weapons. 2. Automatic weapons are not illegal. It is legal to purchase and possess a machine gun as long as it was made prior to 1986 and the buyer goes through the burdensome federal approval process for purchase.”