Anti-gun students want their voices to be heard. I get it, and I want them to have their voices heard. The great thing about this country of ours is that everyone’s voice can be heard.

That doesn’t mean that there’s not a right way and a wrong way to have your voice heard, though. For example, a group of anti-gun students in Minnesota managed to do everything wrong recently when it effectively shut down the state capitol for a time.

The group, led by Josh Groven of the School of Environmental Studies in Apple Valley, took a microphone at a witness table when the Senate Judiciary Committee was discussing an unrelated topic. The committee recessed for a time before coming back and resuming the other topic, elder care. Groven and other students were removed from the meeting.

Those at the afternoon committee meeting were part of a 20-student group that staged a sit-in at the office of committee Chairman Warren Limmer, R-Maple Grove, Monday morning. He said he told them at the time that Senate Republican leaders were considering their request.

Because nothing says “dispell the idea that kids are entitled, spoiled brats” quite like taking the microphone at a witness table for a topic that had nothing to do with gun control.

For the record, Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka argued last week that gun control wasn’t coming up for a vote because it wouldn’t pass. There just weren’t the votes there for it.

So why would Groven and company do this?

That answer is easy. They’ve repeatedly been told that if they make a big enough stink, they win. Their older siblings and cousins in college routinely do this, and the administrations cave. Why wouldn’t it work at this level?

The problem, however, is that people are tired of that crap. We watch it at colleges and feel ill. It’s enough to make some of us wish our kids wouldn’t even attend college.

Bringing that attitude to politics beyond college isn’t going to work, and it’s going to backfire. Antics like this don’t convince people, it pushes them away. There’s a reason why many who identify as liberals are sick of the social justice warrior antics that inspire these tactics. People who should be the SJW’s natural allies want nothing to do with them.

Keep this up, and watch the gun grabbers start stepping back. They don’t want to be associated with that nonsense.

For their purposes, however, a bigger concern should be those who are a bit more wishy-washy in their attitude toward guns. Those people can be swayed, and stunts like this aren’t going to sway them toward the anti-gun side. It’s just not.

So, in that regard, part of me hopes they keep it up. It can only help the Second Amendment if they continue their nonsense. But it’s also distracting. Those kids pulled attention away from another issue, one important to a lot of people, all because they were convinced their preferred issue was the more vital one.

That needs to stop.