Last week, Florida Gov. Rob DeSantis put 50 illegal immigrants on a plane for Martha’s Vineyard. The elite liberal enclave reacted about like you’d expect, of course, and many on the right are at risk of injuring themselves from all the laughing.

It was a pretty brilliant move, politically speaking.

However, New York Mayor Eric Adam claims that the governor as well as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott are just trying to cover up their failure to do anything about gun control.

From Breitbart:

Adams said, “I think it’s a message for the entire country. These are two governors who are hiding up some of the actions they’ve done around gun control which is really a proliferation in our country with guns. It’s what they did with the women’s right to choose. You see, this is their way of covering up what many people have been really concerned about, the erosions of basic human rights. We’re saying crisis calls for coordination. We received a minimum of six buses early this morning. Over 11,000 individuals, asylum-seekers, and migrants have come to the city already. It is time for us to coordinate this humanitarian crisis that our country is facing.”

[Emphasis added]

Why would they be trying to hide what they’ve done or not done regarding gun control? Both ran on gun rights and have been clear that they support gun rights. Why would they be trying to hide that stance when, for the most part, their constituents support that too?

Adams’s comments aren’t just his own attempt to deflect from the progressives’ clear failure to live up to their own lofty ideals. They’re also yet another example of an anti-gun politician acting like everyone actually agrees that gun control works, but pro-gun folks just won’t go along with it regardless.

I mean, why would someone deflect from their failure to pass gun control unless they actually think gun control works and views the lack of any passage as an actual failure?

The thing is, though, that’s not the case. DeSantis and Abbott both have pro-gun stances not because it’s politically expedient, but because both realize that gun control doesn’t work.

That’s something that Adams cannot wrap his head around.

He’s not alone, either. Time and time again, it becomes clear that anti-gun politicians don’t actually understand where we’re coming from. Adams is far from the only one.

But even beyond that, guns and immigration are two separate issues. The American people can view them as separate issues and generally do. While DeSantis and Abbott have sent illegal immigrants to places that have basically claimed they were welcome, it’s far from even capable of deflecting from the gun debate. I mean, with a 24-hour news cycle, it’s not that big of a story.

Adams, however, is hoping he can reframe this black eye for Democrats by playing up issues his party has been polling well on and trying to change the narrative.

I don’t think that’s going to work the way he thinks. Especially as we’re seeing support for gun control slip and what support remains existing for small, poorly-understood changes and not the sweeping policies Democrats tend to favor.