David Hogg: AR-15 Owners Are Hunting Human Beings

A year ago, no one had ever heard of David Hogg. Then after a mass shooting put him in front of the cameras, he’s now a name almost everyone knows.

It’s too bad for both him and everyone else that the only thing he knows is how to find himself in front of a camera.

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The latest example of Hogg displaying his ignorance comes to us from an interview he recently did on MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell, one chronicled over at the Washington Free Beacon:

After telling viewers that Americans need to find unity in addressing gun violence, Hogg was asked about his recent efforts to ban certain kinds of semiautomatic firearms at the state level. He said he and other March for Our Lives activists had introduced a ballot initiative to ban so-called assault weapons in Florida. He said those who own an AR-15, the most popular rifle in the United States, want to hunt other people.

“The truth of the matter is weapons like the AR-15 have an effective range of over 1,500 meters,” Hogg said. “If you’re using a weapon with an effective range of over 1,500 meters, you are not defending yourself. You are hunting a human being.”

Really?

The most impressive thing I see here is just how wrong Hogg is on just about everything.

For one thing, the effective range for an AR-15 is closer to 600 yards at best, or about 550 yards. That’s a far cry from 1,500 yards. Since I know someone like Hogg would never take the word of a writer for Bearing Arms on this, let me quote Mic.com instead.

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The AR-15 platform is known for its accuracy, especially over longer distances. For some types of hunting, this characteristic is particularly useful for successful hunts. Each bullet type has varying effective ranges. The .223 is effective from 400-600 meters. An AR-15 chambered in .308 has an effective range to about 800 meters; .338 Lapua’s effective range is about 1500 meters; and .50 BMG has the range of about one mile.

In other words, the range isn’t even close to what’s being reported.

However, if it were, guess what? It doesn’t mean anything. For example, .338 Lapua is a hunting round with such a long range. Yes, it’s used by snipers, but it’s primarily a hunting round. With hunting, you want a decent range to your round because it means you don’t have to get as close to the game, minimizing your odds of spooking them.

Now, with that out of the way, let’s delve into the meat of the comment, the claim that if you have an AR-15, you’re “hunting people.”

As a gun person, I know a lot of AR-15 owners. Tons of them. Do you know what absolutely none of them do?

If you guessed “hunt people,” then give yourself a cookie.

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Most AR-15 owners have never used them on a human being — the few who have did it out of self-defense. No one is using them to hunt people.

But we can’t expect Hogg to know that. He doesn’t gain any benefit from knowing things. Instead, he makes outrageous claims to keep himself in the headlines and pretend he knows what he’s talking about.

He doesn’t. Clearly.

Then again, in his crowd, knowledge is a liability. If he knew a damn thing about anything, he’d probably have very different opinions which his anti-gun handlers would find incredibly inconvenient.

To young Mr. Hogg, my advice is to you is to sit down, shut up, and learn a few things before you embarrass yourself again.

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