If you’ve ever taken part in the weekly VIP Gold live chat with HotAir’s Ed Morrissey and myself, you’ve probably heard me utter the phrase “everything is stupid and it’s only getting worse.” I’m sure there are exceptions to that rule, but when it comes to the arguments of anti-gunners, that phrase definitely applies.

The latest example? The anti-gun left’s full-throttled freakout over a Second Amendment-themed hoodie that apparently led to some sort of disciplinary action against a Utah high school student; a situation highlighted by Sen. Rand Paul over the weekend in a tweet that appears to have now been deleted. Here’s the shirt in question.

Honestly, as crazy as it is for the teen to have been disciplined for wearing his hoodie, I find it easier to buy than the anti-gunners’ assertion that the shirt not-so-secretly shows AR-15s and other firearms… uh… orally pleasuring each other.

This shirt is called “guns and 69” and uses the American flag to depict AR-15s having sex, but tell me more about how queens and trans people and library books are grooming our kids https://t.co/dJAEB6k6uZ

— Laura Bassett (@LEBassett) March 19, 2023

Despite Shannon Watts’ insistence that the name of the hoodie the teen was wearing is called “guns and 69”, it looks like that moniker was only adopted by sites that sought to capitalize on the viral nature of Paul’s tweet and the gun control lobby’s response.

Yeah that’s what I found, too. There were some items with that graphic listed under “guns and 69”, but they also include “rand paul” and were all created today, so that’s just people flipping cheap merch based on the viral tweet. pic.twitter.com/WIc41y5NuT

— Rick Rational (@RickRational) March 19, 2023

As far as I’ve been able to figure out, the design has been sold by TacticalSh*t, and it’s marketed as a “freedom flag t-shirt“, not “guns and 69.” Call me crazy, but if a company called “TacticalSh*t” designed a shirt depicting firearms fellating each other, I don’t think they would have shied away from marketing it as a “guns and 69” shirt if that was their intent.

No, what’s really going on here is a simple matter of projection on the part of the anti-gun left. Democrats have been getting slammed by conservatives for “grooming” kids sexually by promoting things like drag shows and sexually explicit material in public schools, and Bassett’s tweet is a ham-handed way of trying to apply the same label to the right.

It’s an idiotic premise, but it’s red meat for anti-gunners and their base of supporters. And though I doubt Watts truly believes the image in question is sexually explicit, I do think that she and others really are worried about kids being “groomed” by Second Amendment advocates; not to embrace their sexuality at a preternaturally early age but to support all of their individual rights, including the right to keep and bear arms.

Anti-gun politicians are proposing bills requiring a gun license to attend gun shows or banning minors from attending gun shows altogether, while the gun control lobby and allies from Joe Biden to California Gov. Gavin Newsom are accusing the firearms industry of marketing to kids. It’s not a stretch to say that the anti-gun movement generally views any parent who teaches their kids real gun safety, including how to safely and responsibly handle and shoot them, as “groomers” who are inculcating their offspring into the Cult of the Gun. It’s bad enough (as far as gun control activists are concerned) that a kid may go hunting with their parents, but when they or any other minor starts publicly showing support for a right they’re not yet old enough to fully exercise it must be because they’ve been brainwashed… and of course, any parent or adult like Paul who encourages this type of behavior must be portrayed as scandalously as possible.

My guess is that most people see the image in question for the representation of firearms and freedom that it is and not some sort of stylized gun orgy, so I don’t think the gun control activists are doing themselves any favors. In fact, I’m hoping that they keep up this line of attack. Everything is stupid and it’s only getting worse, after all, and we all need a good laugh every now and then.