Heckuva job, Charlotte Allen! (You too, NRA!)

It has been a jaw-dropping cou­ple of days for rea­soned minds track­ing the national con­ver­sa­tion about what lessons we should draw from the New­town massacre.

First we had con­ser­v­a­tive ide­o­logue Char­lotte Allen’s bizarre claim that the mur­der of 20 chil­dren and six adults can be traced to the “help­less pas­siv­ity” that per­me­ates such a “fem­i­nized set­ting.” “Con­grat­u­la­tions, National Review: You have pub­lished the sin­gle most brain dead, idi­otic and offen­sive response to a national tragedy,” is how Salon pref­aced its report on Allen’s instantly noto­ri­ous ram­blings. “Noted Ass­hole Says Sandy Hook Mas­sacre Wouldn’t Have Hap­pened If There Had Been Men Around,” read a head­line on Jezebel.

And today, of course, we had the spec­ta­cle of NRA exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent Wayne LaPierre – the ulti­mate hired gun – mak­ing the case for why there should be a gun in every school. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” was how he put it at this morning’s NRA press con­fer­ence. (You know another way to stop a guy with a gun? Take away his gun. But I digress.)

LaPierre is not the first to make noises along these lines, and in recent days, I’ve been unable to resist such tan­ta­liz­ing easy pick­ings. “And I mean, not to over think this or any­thing, but might it not be a wee bit dan­ger­ously con­fus­ing to law enforce­ment when they arrive and see a teacher bran­dish­ing a gun? And, oh dear, what about the dan­ger of friendly fire? And — I mean, just because we should con­sider the pos­si­bil­i­ties — is there any chance there could be lia­bil­ity issues if a teacher inten­tion­ally or inad­ver­tently shoots a stu­dent or col­league?” is one typ­i­cal com­ment from my Face­book feed.

But you know what? I was wast­ing my time. Logic isn’t the issue. Not for Char­lotte Allen. And not for the NRA. Their goal isn’t to per­suade. Their goal is to make money.

On the Inter­net, provo­ca­tion pays—just ask, Ann Coul­ter.  The more out­ra­geous your argu­ment, the bet­ter your met­rics. (And no, that’s not always true. But very often it is.) Is Char­lotte Allen delu­sional or a clever manip­u­la­tor? It doesn’t really mat­ter:  Either way, it pays off for the National Review.

For its part, the NRA is about sell­ing guns.  What bet­ter way to enhance prof­its than an arms race in pub­lic schools?

There’s one thing that keeps me from slip­ping into an impo­tent fury here: A grow­ing sense that such voices are fast becom­ing vic­tims of their own success.

A recent NBC/Wall Street Jour­nal poll gives the Sec­ond Amendment-brandishing Repub­li­can Party only a 30% favor­able rat­ing, down sig­nif­i­cantly since before the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. (In the mean­time, the Demo­c­ra­tic Party is on the rise.) When asked to give a word or short phrase to describe the GOP, 65% offered a neg­a­tive com­ment, includ­ing more than half of Repub­li­cans. Among the descrip­tions: “Bad,” “weak,” “neg­a­tive,” “uncom­pro­mis­ing,” “bro­ken,” and “lost.” “Repub­li­cans have gone off the image cliff,” Demo­c­ra­tic poll­ster Peter D. Hart is quoted as saying.

Shortly before the Novem­ber elec­tion, Lizzie Skur­nick—my bril­liant writer friend I’ve never met—humorously chas­tised Obama sup­port­ers for going to such great lengths to iden­tify Rom­ney cam­paign mis­steps. “We should be all ‘Heck­uva job, Rove!’” she pro­claimed, refer­ring to George W. Bush’s post-Katrina plau­dits for soon-to-be-disgraced FEMA direc­tor Michael D. (“Brownie”) Brown.

Which got me to think­ing. The more provoca­tive, confrontational—and yes, crazier—folks like Allen and LaPierre sound, the clearer the line between sen­si­ble reg­u­la­tion and sheer lunacy.

Thanks, Char­lotte Allen.

Thanks, NRA.

You’re mak­ing my case way bet­ter than I pos­si­bly could.

© 2012, amy gut­man. All rights reserved.