There’s no better proof of the impact of gun-control activism than the unrestrained vitriol directed against the students from Stoneman Douglas High School, who are now the most vocal public voices in the debate. Less than two weeks after the mass shooting in February, Charles C.W. Cooke published an article with the unfortunate title “David Hogg Is Fair Game for Critics.” Cooke made the reasonable argument that Hogg, one of the most prominent student survivors, was now a public figure voicing controversial opinions, so political opponents shouldn’t shy away from making sharp, if respectful, rebuttals.

Cooke’s argument, on its own terms, is perfectly reasonable. The problem is that much of the response on the right has included nasty and mendacious personal attacks on the students, not rational arguments about the wisdom of gun control. The dominance of personal attacks suggests that on the issue of guns, the right is facing a genuine conundrum: The students combine unimpeachable personal testimony (their experience surviving the shooting) with specific gun-control policies that are popular with the vast majority of Americans.

Lacking any persuasive political arguments, the right has decided to smear the students. What’s notable is that this effort extends to many different factions of conservatism, from hard-core Trumpists to supposedly more moderate Never Trump conservatives. As ThinkProgress editor Judd Legum notes:

Trump has made us a bit numb but the coordinated, dishonest and mean-spirited attacks on a group of high school students by the right-wing media -- a group of students who just survived a mass shooting -- is an abomination — Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) March 27, 2018

Breitbart highlighted videos purportedly showing Hogg making a Nazi salute. Representative Steve King attacked another student activist, Emma González, for both wearing a Cuban patch flag and for not knowing Spanish. There’s been a raft of other conspiracy theories floating around right-wing social media, ranging from the students being crisis actors to González ripping up a copy of the Constitution.



Disturbingly, these conspiracy theories have popped up not just in sites like Gateway Pundit and Infowars (which is infamous for claiming that the Sandy Hook massacre was a false-flag operation) but on more respectable sites, too. On Tuesday, Erick Erickson, who often presents himself as a reasonable Never Trump Republican interested in finding common ground, touted an article on his website, RedState, that claimed that Hogg wasn’t even at the school during the shooting. Erickson assured his readers that this “isn’t a fake news Gateway Pundit story.” But in fact, although not a deliberate deception, the story was completely bogus. It was based on the reporter not understanding that a video showing Hogg talking about going back to the school was shot long after the gun violence ended. The reporter Sarah Rumpf gracefully recanted the story.