David Hogg: Prove You're Not Controlled By NRA By Doing What I Want

Look, I really do try not to blast people David Hogg just because they’re young. I’m a middle-aged guy, though, so it’s tough. The truth, though, isn’t that he’s young. Young people do amazing things all the time. Hogg and his friends, to their credit, actually are trying to be in the camp of those who do great things.

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The problem, though, is that he’s just so insufferable when he does it.

Take Wednesday night’s appearance by Hogg on CNN.

So, the only way President Trump can prove he’s not controlled by the NRA is to show that he’s really controlled by David Hogg? That’s what he’s saying after all. “Do what I’m demanding rather than what those other people want to prove those other people don’t control you.” I’m sorry, but that’s not exactly going to encourage anyone to do anything except mock you.

It damn sure won’t encourage President Trump to listen.

And enough with the hysterics. Debate over these proposals exists because people disagree. Hogg thinks we need these laws or people will die, but I argue that with these laws, people will die. Disarming law-abiding people and making it impossible for them to meet the threats they may face doesn’t make anyone safer. It never has and it never will.

Let’s be fair, though. It seems Hogg is a magnanimous sort. He’s willing to compromise on the assault weapon ban of his group’s platform.

Gun control activist and mass shooting survivor David Hogg suggested that instead of outright banning AR-15-style rifles, a compromise can be made that would allow them to be regulated at the same level as machine guns.

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper said a mandatory buy back of “assault weapons,” for which March For Our Lives came out in support Wednesday, will be used by gun owners to say that they were right to say Democrats want to take their guns away.

“Well, let’s think about it this way. These are weapons of war that never should have been on our streets in the first place. I can guarantee you that the framers of the Constitution never would imagine a weapon like the AR-15 being in the hands of an American citizen. They never would have imagined somebody going into a school,” Hogg said.

“If this plan ends up in Congress, and they say a gun registry is a nonstarter or the assault weapons ban and mandatory gun buy back program are nonstarters, OK. Then maybe we start talking about reclassifying them and making sure you have the right permitting in place where you can still go and use them,” Hogg continued. “But people aren’t going to have nearly as easy accessibility to them to go and commit mass shootings as they are currently.”

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How gracious of him.

That’s not a compromise. That’s just taking a tiny bit less than they want to. That’s not a compromise and it may also be enough to spark off a degree of ugliness that Hogg doesn’t really want to see. It’s a serious encroachment into a right the Founding Fathers expressly noted was protected in an effort to keep the government in check.

Trying to make accessing these weapons on par with buying a machinegun isn’t going to happen. There’s barely the political will for an assault weapon ban in the House, for crying out loud, and it’s a far different ban than what Hogg is talking about.

One of Hogg’s co-founders referred to this plan as a “Green New Deal, but for guns.” I’d say that’s an apt description. After all, it’s pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking that takes no consideration of reality concocted by people who think they have a duty to cram their ideology down people’s throats by force if necessary.

My hope is that in time, Hogg will understand why all of these is a non-starter. It won’t happen, though, unless he starts dealing with people who aren’t afraid to tell him how the world works and not blow sunshine up his rectum. So far, though, there’s no indication he even knows anyone like that.

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