Once upon a time, David Hogg tried to hide from criticism behind his youth. He said a lot of stupid crap, but he was a kid so we weren’t allowed to bash him over it.

Supposedly, anyway.

Now, he’s been at an Ivy League school for a while and damned if he’s not managing to get even dumber. Take this hot tweet of his from Thursday:

Being a country that protect guns and not people is a choice.

— David Hogg (@davidhogg111) September 30, 2021

Oh, that’s just absolutely adorable.

In my reading of the Constitution, I don’t recall anywhere that states the government has the power to actually step in and directly protect the people from much of anything.

After all, trying to do so would entail a vast surveillance and police state, something the Founding Fathers would really have been against. How can you protect people without knowing precisely what everyone is up to at a given moment?

What the Constitution does do, however, is enshrine and defend the right for those same people to protect themselves…via the Second Amendment.

See, the beauty in the Second Amendment that Hogg doesn’t get is that the right to keep and bear arms empowers the American people to protect themselves, both from a tyrannical government and the tyranny of the thug. They can defend themselves.

After all, as Hogg should have been taught at Harvard but clearly hasn’t, the courts have ruled repeatedly that the government has no duty to protect individuals from criminal activity, be it with a gun, a knife, or just plain fists. They have no duty, nor should they. The police, the agents charged with “protecting and serving,” simply can’t be everywhere.

Failing to protect people isn’t so much a choice as a sad recognition of reality.

Unless, of course, as previously noted, the United States engaged a vast and overreaching surveillance apparatus designed to keep tabs on each and every American as well as build up a law enforcement system so vast and controlling that it could respond to whatever the surveillance operation found.

Of course, at that point, dorm room pot smoking will be a thing of the past. Think Massachusetts legalized it? Doesn’t matter. The federal laws override those laws and the SWAT team is coming in to haul David Hogg and his buddies to prison. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

Luckily, we don’t need anything like that.

We have the right to keep and bear arms, where I’m able to make a choice and carry a firearm if I so choose, thus being able to protect myself and my family from potential dangers.

Unfortunately, David Hogg isn’t the type to listen to these kinds of arguments. He’s far too busy trying to be pithy on Twitter and trying to feel smart while saying nothing that actually makes any sense to anyone who has remotely studied these or related issues.

Maybe Hogg needs to spend more time reading beyond the works suggested by his confirmation bias so that he can at least understand the other side of the argument.

More than that, he should come to understand the ramifications of a government that decides it will protect people above respecting their rights.

Seriously, that idea should keep him awake at night.