Updated

For the media, it was their March Madness:

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JAMES GAGLIANO, CNN analyst: The wheels of change are happening. And I'm getting chills just having this conversation just north of the National Mall where women suffrage started and civil rights --

CHUCK TODD, NBC NEWS: This really a handful of marches that you remember, that our town remembers the civil rights marches of the '60s, the abortion rights marches of the '80s and '90s, Tea Party, Million Man March, you think about those things. This is right up there.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC: These young people were -- very much like the anti- Vietnam protesters in the early -- late '60s. It was the beginning of a protest.

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So, what was once personal is now political -- complete with slogans, signs, a gushing media, militant salutes and, of course, invective:

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PARKLAND SURVIVOR DAVID HOGG: First off, I'm going to start off by putting this price tag right here as a reminder for you guys to know how much Marco Rubio took for every student's life in Florida -- $1.05.

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That was harsh, but was it daring? Not really. What would be daring is including a Parkland student with a different viewpoint on gun control up on that stage as well.

Now, with David Hogg, he's just a kid, right? So the media says off-limits. But the Rubio thing? That was lame grandstanding. Is that too harsh to Mr. Hogg? Not really, because by criticizing him, I'm complementing him. He's now a revolutionary, like other well-organized and well-funded revolutionaries. Not challenging revolutionaries will be patronizing.

But if you're asking me, the students of Parkland had a real gripe. A craven sheriff didn't do his job as well as an insane killer did his, so 17 people died. The students thought their school should be a safe space, not like the safe spaces of older college kids who weep at the hint of painful truths. But a real safe space protected from madmen and when necessary shielded by grown-ups with guns.

The same goals of sensible students should not be ignored by the NRA. But if the other truth is ignored by parents, well, go on blaming guns for acts of evil instead of actual evildoers. And in four years, you'll end up with cowering undergrads majoring only in sanctimony and sign-making.