David Hogg is the gift that keeps on giving.

He’s kind of like a rash. The difference is that there’s usually a point to it. But with Hogg, not so much.

The recent high school graduate now forced into a “gap year” due to not getting into college is still bloviating on gun control, not recognizing his 15 minutes of fame are up with the mainstream media. Hogg’s convinced he can make a “difference” by coming up with stupid idea after stupid idea.

The latest? A federal tax on guns to fund gun violence research.

Congress ought to create a federal tax on gun sales to fund gun violence research.

— David Hogg 📢 (@davidhogg111) November 28, 2018

Yes, David. That’s precisely what will happen. Let’s ignore the laws that already forbid government funding of explicitly anti-gun research – and we all know that’s the kind David is talking about, don’t we? – and create a tax to fund what’s already forbidden.

I’m fairly sure he was dropped on his head as an infant.

However, this isn’t one of the dumbest things I’ve heard. The idea of adding a tax on something, then using that tax money to combat that very thing isn’t unusual. Cigarette taxes, for example, have been used to fund anti-smoking campaigns.

But I’m curious how David would feel if we played his little game and turned it around just a bit.

For example, what if we taxed Planned Parenthood and used the money to fuel anti-abortion efforts?

What about taxing charities that provide services to illegal immigrants (point of order, as a science fiction buff, I hate calling them aliens) and then using that money to help fund border security? Or, and here’s one that might actually happen, take the funding that would ordinarily go to sanctuary cities and use that for border security.

I mean, we can play that game too.

But Hogg lives in an echo chamber. There’s no one around him to tell him that his ideas are idiotic and that he’s not nearly as smart or well-versed on the subject as he likes to think he is. The only people calling him on his stuff are the nameless, faceless people on social media, and the Left has been screaming “Russian bots” long enough that he has no reason to believe these are real people.

Because of that, there’s no one to help him learn how to form rational arguments or viable suggestions. There’s no one there to really challenge him and make him defend his position.

The mainstream media didn’t. David was always the loan guest with generally a friendly host who might have tried to act adversarial, but who everyone knew wasn’t.

Without challenge, there’s no growth.

Cameron Kasky, Hogg’s classmate and March For Our Lives co-founder, was able to challenge himself. Hogg can’t, and that’s the reason he cooks up half-baked ideas like this one. He can’t see how this could be taken as anything other than reasonable, but mostly because he doesn’t understand how unreasonable his entire position is.

Hat tip: The Washington Times