In the rest of the party, the best they can offer is stuff like what former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum proffered over the weekend: learn CPR instead of “looking to someone else to solve their problems.”

For one thing, it’s deeply telling that in reality, a hypothetical elementary school combat medic trying to save their homeroom classmates from grapefruit-sized high-velocity rifle wounds would be most concerned with staunching bleeding, not CPR. Conservatives can’t even get their transparently bad faith deflection arguments right.

And that is why they are largely reduced to smearing and defaming a bunch of kids trying to participate in American democracy. It’s the only political move they have left.

But more importantly, by refusing to accept even slight compromise in the gun debate, conservatives have made their position extremely brittle.