David Hogg
(AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)
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The reality is, right now, I’d rather focus on what we can agree on, which is that, you know, we need to do something. We need to act. And we agree that gun violence, no matter if we’re on the left or right, is unacceptable. School shootings, daily acts of gun violence, you know, ridiculous numbers of gun suicides that are preventable are unacceptable. And we do need to do something about it.

So what I try to do instead is, you know, I say, whenever I’m in conversations like this – so there was a, this past semester – I don’t mean to dwell on this point. But this past semester, I – after one of the many unfortunate shootings that have happened, I decided the only thing that I haven’t done at this point was learn as much as I can about guns and how to use them, operate them, clean them and fire them safely and responsibly.

And I joined the shooting club at my college. And I talked with a lot of young people there who were actually pretty supportive of the work that I was doing, along with some people who obviously were not, because not – nobody is always going to be in agreement about everything.

But through that process, I realized that, you know, there’s a lot more agreement than disagreement out there, even with people who think that they’re completely against us. And it’s not just about – we have to move beyond this binary of either it’s you’re only talking about guns and how people access them or you’re only talking about mental health. We have to talk about both – right? – but with nuance around it. …

There’s a lot of nuances that go along with this that I think would benefit all of us if we focused on that instead of constantly coming back to this debate where nobody’s going to be moved in any way on it just by debating it over and over and over again. And I’ve had enough conversations with people who vehemently disagree with me, who often send me awful things in my private messages on Twitter and things like that. And I’m always able to find some level of agreement with them, you know?

I say, look. I can respect that you don’t agree with me, but I can’t accept that there’s nothing that we can do to address gun violence, right? And from that, we’re able to make progress. 

Yeah, I mean, my first time shooting guns was when I was in fourth grade because my dad was an FBI agent. And he wanted us to – he wanted me to make sure that, you know, I knew this wasn’t a toy. And I – you know, I, of course, grew up like most, you know, boys in America, shooting BB guns in my backyard and stuff like that and playing with Nerf guns and things like that. But, you know, after – it just got to a certain point where I got tired of expecting – I can’t keep expecting people to come to me, you know?

If I’m truly dedicated to trying to end this gun violence, I need to go directly to the people who are some of the most ardent people that are against me. And what I found, surprisingly, is, you know, there’s assumptions that people have on both sides. You know, people hear gun control, and they – what I’ve learned is that to them, it means confiscation. Even if that’s not what it means, even if that’s not what we’re aiming for, even if that’s not what I’m aiming for, to them, it means confiscation.

And it’s been a really enlightening process to talk to a lot of them ’cause I’ve been in competitions before where I’ve had the head of the club come up to me and say – you know, ’cause other people recognize me in this competition against a couple other schools, and they were like, oh, my God, you know, that’s that, you know, quote-unquote, “anti-gun advocate,” David Hogg, you know, and he’s here.

And they come over to me, and they – they’re kind of, like, freaked out, and they’re like, what are you doing here? You know, are you here to protest us? Meanwhile, I had, you know, a 12-gauge, you know, cracked, hanging on my shoulder. But I just said I’m here because I think that there are some assumptions that you have about me and probably some that I have about you. And I don’t think either of them are entirely accurate. And I’m here to figure out what we can agree on so we can move forward, end the gun violence that neither of us wants to see continue. And from that, we’re able to make some progress.

— NPR Fresh Air, A Lesson Parkland Shooting Survivor David Hogg Learned: Find the Joy

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119 COMMENTS

    • Motormouth david hoggwash is clearly in nasty nice mode and if nasty nice doesn’t get you to submit to Gun Control he’ll blow a gasket and get the atf to burn your church down during Bible study, etc.

      There is no such thing as Gun Violence because Violence is Violence whether Violence is with firearms, fists, feet, bats, knives, vehicles, etc. It all circles back to a Content of Character problem found mostly in heads filled with demoCrap.

      By all accounts david hoggwash does not know the Roots of Gun Control are in Racism and Genocide therefore it is impossible for david to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear…Attempting to do so makes david look as dumb as dirt.

      • Hey look, Debbie has the second post again…..
        I assure you that we will see your posts even if they’re at the bottom Deb. Out

      • “There is no such thing as Gun Violence because Violence is Violence whether Violence is with firearms, fists, feet, bats, knives, vehicles, etc. It all circles back to a Content of Character problem . . .”

        Your point is well taken. But, with all respect, I would like to differ with you on a significant point.

        The gun controllers count suicide by gunshot as “gun violence”. Are suicides by gunshot “violence” in the same way as homicide is violence?

        Does suicide by gunshot (or any means for that matter) “circle back to a Content of Character problem . . . “?

        What is the penultimate step to suicide? It’s suicidal ideation. We wouldn’t have to quibble about any of the foregoing if we simply mitigated suicidal ideation. And, if we mitigated suicidal ideation, we get a two-fer.

        If we cut suicidal ideation in half we would save half of gunshot suicides and half of non-gunshot suicides. Two for one.

        We assume mitigating suicidal ideation is difficult. But that’s simply not true. There is a pharma-therapy that is 60% effective for suicidal ideation.

        But no one cares. No one. Except for those few who have SI and find this drug. For them, it’s a life-saver.

        So, let’s resume the debate about gun control and ignore the BIG-number: suicides by gunshot. And also ignore suicides by other means. Saving these lives doesn’t advance the cause of gun-control. It undermines the argument for gun-control because it would reduce deaths by gunshot. Saving these lives doesn’t advance the cause of gun-rights. We gun owners would rather not talk about our brothers who kill themselves with guns.

        I have yet to meet anyone in our gun community who wants to talk about treating suicidal ideation with a simple and effective treatment. Talk of mitigating suicidal ideation is a taboo.

        • “There is a pharma-therapy that is 60% effective for suicidal ideation.”

          What is it? Would you also point me to the study?

        • @Dude:

          Ketamine. I’ve been taking it for 16 months, albeit fortunately, I don’t have SI. It’s battlefield tested in Viet Nam. It is so safe that medical personnel with limited training can administer large doses without monitoring equipment. It’s so safe that patients can self-dose lozenges or suppositories at home without monitoring. We don’t really know what a lethal dose is because anesthesiologists have killed very few patients with it.

          In any case, which is more dangerous? A gun owner, gun in hand, suffering from SI? Or, a drug that is so safe that it doesn’t have a known lethal dose and has negligible incidence of serious adverse side effects? Clearly, we MUST keep this drug a secret! It’s better that the gun owner suicide.

          Just remember, though. No one cares about suicidal ideation. It doesn’t move gun-controllers. It doesn’t move gun-owners.

          “We found that across 10 controlled trials, a single ketamine infusion rapidly reduced the severity of suicidal thinking, within 24 hours in more than half the patients, and with benefits observed up to 1 week.” https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2017.17040472?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed This SI medicine: “It’s effective in around 60% of people . . . “ Sudhaker Selvaraj MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry. https://www.psycom.net/ketamine-suicidal-ideation-treatment https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31733088/

        • Mark, I absolutely agree on the well proven benefits of Ketamine therapy, but there is an established lethal dose. Over 4.2 grams will kill most people, and 5 grams is almost certainly lethal. Yes, I understand this is a truly extreme dose and highly unlikely that anyone would, or probably even could, have this much on hand to take.

        • The suicide numbers ARE with mitigation . My wife is a psychiatrist. She treats people with risk of suicide BUT, 25% of bipolar commit suicide. A lot of depressed individuals do. Our whole society is encouraging more suicide. Transsexual patients are more suicidal post transitioning , which is NOT being said publically, quite the opposite. Depressed people should not be allowed to own firearms psychotics also. Our background check system should’ve updated to include pharmacy records and diagnoses from insurance submissions. 50 years ago, a discharge from a PUBLIC psych facility put you on a don’t buy list. All those hospitals are closed. We need to return to those days. Test all people under 25 or 21 for drugs before gun purchase. It says so on the form you fill out to buy a firearm People LIE.
          All else is a waste of breath. I am a life member of the NRA and a physician. Shooting since 1992. Thanks, bill Clinton!

        • MarkPa…Unfortunately Suicide Violence sounds as dumb as Gun Violence.

          Violence is Violence. Suicide is Suicide whether it is with a firearm, rope, pills, carbon monoxide, kissing a train, jumping off a bridge, slitting wrists, drowning, etc.

          I do not care what sneaks with a Gun Control agenda label it to sell it to fools, etc…It all circles back and ends with, It Is What It Is.

        • Mark, I was administered Ketamine once as part of the anesthesia for surgery. I did not react well to it. I felt like I wanted to crawl out of my skin and did not know what to do with myself. I cannot put to words how horrible the experience was. I am glad that it works for you and others, but it is not a universal solution.

        • @jwtaylor: “. . . there is an established lethal dose. Over 4.2 grams will kill most people, and 5 grams is almost certainly lethal. Yes, I understand this is a truly extreme dose and highly unlikely that anyone would, or probably even could, have this much on hand to take.”

          I found: https://www.drugs.com/dosage/ketamine.html
          “Usual Adult Dose for Anesthesia IV: Induction: 1 to 4.5 mg/kg IV;”
          For a 75 kg man (my weight) = 337 mg.

          So, your lethal figure of 4.2 g, or 4,200 mg is 4200 / 337 = 12.5 times an anesthetic dose.

          We can understand how it is that anesthesiologists, who get good training on how to keep their patients alive, probably don’t give lethal doses of ketamine to their patients. That’s why they don’t kill many of their patients.

          We could quibble about whether the lethal dose is 4.2 g or 5 or 6 or 7. But what might be the point of such a discussion? I think that the record is clear enough that trained anesthesiologists, nurse anesthetists, and RNs don’t kill many of their patients with IV ketamine. And IV-anything is not for the dedicated DIYer.

          Outside of ketamine clinics, mental health patients ingest ketamine via lozenges and suppositories. A little by nasal and a little by IM.

          The bioavailability of sublingual/rectal routes of administration is about 25 – 30%. So, we need to multiply the IV figures by about 3 or 4.

          So, again, that anesthetic dose “Induction: 1 to 4.5 mg/kg IV;”
          For a 75 kg man (my weight) = 337 mg. My prescription is for 400 mg sublingual. I am NOT anesthetized (most of the time) by this dose. I tolerate it very well.

          To ingest (a lethal dose of) 4,200 mg would require that I take 10.5 lozenges at once. That would not be easy to do. And I’m not interested in trying it.

          If the bioavailability had to be taken into account, I’d have to take 30 to 40 lozenges at once. A still more daunting undertaking. (I have that much on-hand. Still not tempted in the least.)

          But what is the point of this discussion? A gun owner with a loaded gun isn’t going to try to suicide by loading 10 or 30 or 40 lozenges in his mouth. Moreover, a gun-owner on a strong-enough dose of ketamine isn’t interested in handling his gun. This seems to be a red-herring line of discussion. You challenged my assertion that we don’t really know what a lethal dose is. Fair enough. I responded. I think we’ve picked this nit as much as it deserves.

          I would advocate that a patient presenting in the ER with suicidal ideation be strapped to a Lazy-Boy and given a 0.5 mg/kg IV of ketamine. Perfectly standard treatment. If he seems to respond, send him home with a 10-pack of lozenges and a referral to a ketamine prescriber who will follow up with him. I don’t sense that you object to such a course of treatment.

          Better still, he gets a six-pack of IVs over two weeks and lozenges to follow-up.

          Any out-patient with SI should be offered ready access to a ketamine prescriber.

          I make NO claim that ketamine is a 100% successful treatment for SI, depression, anxiety, bipolar, PTSD/C-PTSD. Nor 90% nor 80% nor 70%. Only that the 60% efficacy is a plausible number. I am an active member of a couple of subReddit communities where patients overwhelmingly express positive experiences with ketamine. And there are also plenty who didn’t respond or didn’t tolerate this pharma-therapy.

          What’s our threshold for acceptance of a therapy? 100%? 61%?
          What’s our alternative? If the best medicine isn’t 100% effective, shall we advise someone to suffer in silence? Or shoot himself. If these are not the alternatives, WHAT DO we recommend?

          Conventional antidepressants have an estimated efficacy of 30%. So, here we have ketamine with DOUBLE that level of efficacy. What is the argument for making it as INaccessible as possible?

          I reiterate my assertion. No one is interested in treating suicidal ideation. No one in the gun-controller community; no one in the gun-rights community. Treating suicidal ideation doesn’t advance gun-control (it works against gun control). Treating suicidal ideation isn’t talking about the 2A. We here at TTAG are interested in 2A rights. Not gunshot suicides. It’s a dead issue. As dead as our brother gun-owners who suicide by gunshot.

          So, in fact, no one is interested in talking about the BIG-number: suicide by gunshot. And no one is interested in talking about the equally BIG-number, suicide by means OTHER than gunshot.

          @Indi: “. . . I was administered Ketamine once as part of the anesthesia for surgery. I did not react well to it. I felt like I wanted to crawl out of my skin and did not know what to do with myself. I cannot put to words how horrible the experience was. I am glad that it works for you and others, but it is not a universal solution.”

          I am sorry you had a bad experience with ketamine. Yup, it’s true. Some people have a rough time with ketamine. I wonder if “as part of the anesthesia” means that you were given a sub-anesthetic dose as part of the initiation of anesthesia. If so, your dose would have been about the quantity administered for mental health indications. And it’s fairly commonplace for patients to have a really ugly experience of their trauma coming up when they initiate a course of ketamine therapy.

          Equally commonplace is a severely depressed patient with SI getting out of the Lazy-boy with no interest in offing-himself. Or, the ideation is gone in 24 hours, or a couple of weeks. Tell me, what standard-of-care for SI EVER delivers results in 2 hours to 2 weeks? What’s your alternative?

          Suicidal ideation is not a pleasant way of life. The way out is the way through. Most mental health patients who have the patience and resiliance to see their way through ketamine therapy respond very well. A majority don’t have serious adverse experiences.

          So, we have this marvelous medicine. Works 60% of the time. But we won’t tell a person with SI about it because he runs maybe a 20% chance of having an unpleasant experience with it on his way to a cure. Better let him suffer depression and SI rather than offer him a treatment with a 20% chance of an unpleasant experience on his way to mental health. You are right: “. . . it is not a universal solution.” He might not tolerate the treatment. And, we won’t know if he is in that 20% until we offer him a trial. So, let’s assume he would rather suffer his SI rather than run a 20% chance of an unpleasant experience. Better that he does not know that he MIGHT be treated successfully and without an unpleasant experience.

          (By the way, I’ve been there, done that, and got 3 T-shirts. Three very challenging trips. I wanted off the roller-coaster. Still, I knew I was perfectly safe even though I was perfectly alone. I knew it would be over in 30 minutes. And I didn’t hesitate to take the next doses 3 days following my challenging trips. Some of us really are willing to take the way through to find the way out. For the rest, there is MDMA.)

          We gun-owners don’t have much patience for the very ineffectual standards-of-care for SI. We have the means of executing on SI swiftly and decisively. If our brothers-in-arms with SI don’t get a decisive treatment, then the standard treatments on offer are too little too late.

          But, again. Ultimately, no one cares about suicidal ideation. We are here to discuss gun-control and gun-rights.

      • Thank you Debbie. You are absolutely correct. Violence is violence regardless of the weapon used. How do we stop the violence? That may be the best question. But let’s look at history. We (humans) have been killing each other for thousands of years. And it appears we haven’t learned a damn thing

    • Hogg only wants to ban guns, and get into positions within government to make an attempt to usher in his utopia. That’s why he talks ridiculous nonsense like this. To obfuscate his goal. But we all know what it is.

      • Nah. Hogg thinks he’s “discovered” a way to make a living wage without the need to actually do anything productive, or learn anything. He wants to be paid for his childish nonsense, and claim to big expertise from being well removed from a school shooting, never in any danger.

    • They should sweep their facility for hidden cameras and listening devices. Every time he leaves.

  2. The Hogg wants to be the Greta Thunberg of the shooting sports but seems more like Pee-wee Herman.

    • “we have to move beyond this binary of either it’s you’re only talking about guns and how people access them or you’re only talking about mental health. We have to talk about both – right?”

      Here’s where he goes off the rails. Guns are not the problem and never were. Cultures, mental health, & poor to non-existent prosecutions are the problems & the only problems that should be discussed.

    • as I’ve said before you know about that whatever we disagree with some agreement in the first place you know all I have said before relative to this stuff is on my mind……….quoth mr hog never mind.

    • It used to be, this sort of writing would be intended as the dialog for some stoned-out surfer character from a movie set in a high school. Now it’s the actual work product of a real-life Harvard student.

  4. 1. Is it allowable, in the Peoples Rep of Mass, to transfer (hand) an obviously insane person a firearm?

    2. Hogg well illustrates the mediocracy of Harvard in the 21st Century.

  5. The incoherence in that was … impressive. Granted, we filter out a lot of verbal “noise,” when listening live so exact transcripts often look less than eloquent, but still.

    • Uncle Mike has probably provided Hogg boy a staff to do things such as write scripts, attend classes, submit assignments, and sit tests.

      • Has about the same impact as “I graduated from West Point” to any unit on deployment where they actually get shot at/blown up on a semiregular basis.

        • SAFEupstateFML, being a West Point graduate doesn’t mean what I thought it did. The Louisiana governor is a West Point graduate(1988) and he vetoed CC/ pertmitless carry legislation in 2021. Of course 4 Senators, 3 RINOs and a Dem, changed a yeah to a nay thus killing the veto override.

        • Hush once you realize it is more for political programming/grooming Rightthink it makes a lot more sense. With that said it was probably worse with the Vietnam vets but I will let them chime in on that one as I am only familiar with the Afghanistan/Iraq examples for first and close second hand accounts.

        • The only West Point grad I know is an intelligent guy, but he believes the regime propaganda.

  10. It’s amazing that anyone -anti or pro-gun give a Rat’s bass about this zero scrub. He’s a nobody null person who only has any existence because “journalists” recognize a nothing.

  11. That was hard to read.
    Not because of what he was trying to convey.
    It was all the “you know.”

    Anyways, end gun violence?
    I would agree there is a degree of mental health crisis in America. Take that trans woman who plotted, planed and then went and shot up a school killing 6 to include 3 children. If you cannot define what a woman is, I would question your grip on reality and say you have a mental health issue.

    What he does not address is criminal gun violence. Gang related gun violence. By definition these people committing these acts of violence are criminals. Even if by some draconian gun confiscation law these criminals would still have guns and committing gun violence. It would just give the cartels another stream of revenue by smuggling in guns across our unsecure southern border.
    Dont think that wouldnt happen?
    Look at Sweden. Used to be one of if not the safest country in the EU. Now it is one of the most dangerous. They already surpassed the 2022 number of bombings.
    The defund the police movement has likely more to contribute to the crime rate in Blue cities. St Louis and Baltimore are on the top 20 most dangerous cities in the world list.
    Want to address gun violence? Address the core of criminal gun violence. The destruction of the nuclear family. Poor education. The glorification of thug life. Re-fund the police for safer neighborhoods. Just to name a few.

  12. With a fresh college degree in hand, he still believes that there can be something known as ” Gun Violence “, which should have been removed from his vocabulary had he not slept through Psych 101 while discussing cathexis.

  13. Gun control does always mean confiscation. A review of history from the 1800’s to today clearly reveals that the history of gun control is “a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States”. The course and progress is clear. Every little bit of gun control is a step toward confiscation. Enough commies have said the quiet part out loud that it is no longer deniable, and those who do so are either lying to themselves or saying it for propaganda purposes.

    We see that no matter how many laws there are, they are always unable to stop violence. In fact the logical conclusion from an objective analysis of the facts indicates that laws will never be able to stop violence as people who commit violence are intentionally disregarding the law just in deciding to commit violence. Why then would they care if their preferred method or tool was illegal?

    All the laws do is prevent law abiding people from being able to defend themselves against violence. The laws only prevent access to weapons for those who do not need to be prevented from accessing weapons.

    The state has been the largest committer of violence throughout all of human history.

    Given the facts, leaving the state and the criminals (but I repeat myself) as the only holders of the means to do violence is completely insane, unless you are a criminal or a part of the state apparatus (but again, I repeat myself).

  14. “And we agree that gun violence, no matter if we’re on the left or right, is unacceptable.”

    That, that right there – the trick, “we will begin with me defining the parameters of how you must agree with me and I get to use undefined terms that can be filled with anything I like and if you disagree with me then you are a far right wing gun nut and a white-supremacists and anything else I can think of and dangerous and we need to take your guns.”

    First, qualify ‘gun violence’ because there really isn’t such a thing. Its ‘people violence’, people commit acts of violence.

    Second, valid legal self/home/others defense that you want to use the ‘gun violence’ excuse to remove the exercise of is not a discussion, its tyranny.

    “And what I found, surprisingly, is, you know, there’s assumptions that people have on both sides. You know, people hear gun control, and they – what I’ve learned is that to them, it means confiscation. Even if that’s not what it means, even if that’s not what we’re aiming for, even if that’s not what I’m aiming for, to them, it means confiscation.”

    Ahhhh the great lie again …”we only want a little control to reduce ‘gun violence’, come on, help us out, just give up a little of your constitutional rights.” (even though guns are not causing the violence, and this only affects law abiding people who have done nothing wrong and does nothing to stop those criminals who would cause the violence). Biden has stated it, every left-wing politician running for office of Mayor and up has stated it, every major gun-control advocacy/activist group has stated it. ‘confiscation’ is exactly what gun-control means, be it by banning/restricting and then taking them or taking them outright either whole or in part – ‘confiscation’ is exactly what left-wing gun-control means and its exactly what you are aiming for.

  15. That was the biggest load of horse shit I’ve seen drop in the pasture in years. I’m also sick of hogg being described as a survivor by himself and others because he wasn’t in the building.

  16. “Harvard shooting club”, huh…. Suspect there’s rampant limp-wristing on that range.
    Change my mind.

  17. David Hogg is certainly not alone or in the minority of young people.

    By doing absolutely nothing from keeping guns out of the hands of lunatics and criminals and allowing school shootings to be “a thing” we have created an entire younger generation of gun haters because they have been so traumatised by the almost daily mass murders in our country.

    Only yesterday I was at a gun store that I stop in weekly on my way to my once a week shooting match at a gun club just a bit up the road from the gun store. Yesterday I could not help but notice and ponder the reality that whenever I am at the gun store or at the shooting club there is no one there except doddering old grey haired men. In other words I cannot even recall when the last time I saw a young person at either place.

    Most of the Far Right have no idea that they are a very small minority of the overall population of gun owners. Gun owners comprise a wide variety of people including Liberals, Independents and Conservatives, most of whom are disgusted and shocked by the Far Right fanatics who actually believe they are the majority of gun owners and that all gun control should be abolished. In the gun club I belong to we have over 1,000 members now and the majority vote Democrat and know that we do need some sane and sensible new gun laws to keep guns out of the hands of the lunatics, criminals and Trumpite Jackbooted Insurrectionists which the FBI has stated are the greatest danger to American Democracy and freedom.

    I would say even if we had no mass shootings the almost complete lack of young people today in the shooting sports would indicate that more gun control is almost a certainty when the younger generations enter politics.

    I think the NPR Fresh Air segment certainly surprised a lot of people, especially the Far Right who believe that only they own and use firearms. But ignorance has always been their hallmark.

    • Dacien, You make about as much sense as either Hogg or Kameltoe Harris.
      Please give an example of how your oh so civilized countries have managed to protect their citizens from violent criminals or even their own government thugs by disarming them.
      If anyone has demonstrated ignorance or foolishness, it would be you.

      • Like Kameltoe, dacian believes in reducing the population. Not for health and environmental reasons. But as a start to eliminate enemies of the rev0lution and to redistribute the wealth to those less fortunate. He hopes to exceed the population percentage by “Brother number one” (aka Pol Pot of the Khmer Rouge) and the total number by “The Great Helmsman” Mao. He also hopes to exceed the personal tally of Vasily Blokhin, Stalin’s personal executioner.

    • You must be from another planet. Young people in this country love guns. Video games, more than anything else did that.

      The pro gun side has won. And a lot of the credit goes to you and miner for keeping us on task and reminding us just how bad it would be if you fascists won.

      Thanks in large part to you federal constitutional carry is looming. Bless you for being too stupid and uneducated to understand this.

    • dacian, we know better. You have only added more excrement to the pile the Hogg keft behind.

    • Your single place of data information leaves much to be desired in terms of dictating any nationwide trend. I have multiple shooting club memberships in three different states, visit roughly 4-5 gun shops per month, and attend gun shows when I can. From my more expansive experience, I have never encountered a demographic that you base your reply premise on – if your account is even indeed, true. I see plenty of young people active in shooting sports and activities and have noticed, for the better, more and more young women participating and taking classes. Before you proclaim, in your “vast” experience, that gun control is inevitable, so just give up the fight, I’d start getting out of my own backyard a little more often.

    • lil’d, if you went to gun shop yesterday and only saw old white guys, it was because it was a WEEKDAY when most normal people are WORKING. The old white guys are probably retired so they don’t work on weekdays, unless you think they could be more productive digging your Great Lakes to Seattle canal with their bare hands.

      Go to a gun shop on a weekend and you’ll see more diversity in ages of the patrons.

    • dacian the DUNDERHEAD. Please tell me pray tell what you are talking about? It so happens that it is you Lefties who are allowing guns in the hands of lunatics. Remember the HIPPA law, and how it PREVENTS mental healthcare providers from disclosing any information about a patient who is a danger to himself or others UNLESS the threat is IMMINENT? For all the “gun control laws” that are on the books, not one of those laws has prevented a death due to a gunshot. They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. You anti-gun control freaks fall into that category.
      First, the US is NOT a “democracy”; it is a Constitutional Republic. Second, the real jackbooted folks are your ANTIFA and BLM thuggish stormtroopers.
      For the five hunderth time, that J6 demonstration was a PROTEST that turned into a riot, with quite a bit of evidence that government agents incited it at least in part.

      • To Walter the Beverly Hillbilly

        Tell us all another one of your bloviated lies about the Jan 6 Beer Hall Putsch by Herr Drumpf to take over the government by force.

        A live bomb was found.

        The Proud Boys (who organized the Putsch) were arrested with a room full of military weapons stacked almost to the ceiling.

        Armed people were arrested.

        The police were assaulted and one died.

        Dozens are now in prison.

        And you lie between your teeth that it was a peaceful protest. See a shrink because you are only fooling yourself not any sane people.

        • dacian, the DUNDERHEAD. There have been NUMEROUS accounts by FBI informants and others that the Jan 6th DEMONSTRATION was not an “insurrection” as you Leftists claim and that some FBI informants egged on the demonstrators and incited in some cases the riot, NOT an “insurrection” as you Leftists claim. The J 6 Demonstration started OUT as a protest that degenerated into a riot.
          Now, how about the summer of 2020 where your ANTIFA and BLM thuggish stormtroopers rioted and took over parts of US cities? Using your rhetoric, those were INSURRECTIONS.
          No, DUNDERHEAD, you are a persistent liar, a protagonist and a Leftist propagandist. Karl Marx and Joe Stalin would be proud not to mention Mao Tse Tung.

    • Dacian spouting delusional nonsense about gun owners being in the extreme minority to make him feel better about our current situation where he is losing bigly.

    • Have studies into the effect of Xanax on marsupials even been done? His girlfriend is half chimpanzee so she might have been tested on. But a possum?

    • It’d be a shame to,you know, be downrange at the range & you know, get yer girl arm blown off in a “negligent dicharge? Ya know Hoggboy!?🙄🙃

  20. David Hoagg is trying to infiltrate our midst. He is engaging in what is called divide and conquer.

        • More than you would ever want to know about Davie boy, but necessary information to understand why he is truly an enemy of Freedom and Liberty. He could easily be considered a Emmanuel Goldstein type character in the ways he has been indoctrinated, along with his use of Liberal/Progressive tactic and ideology. The link below will give an insight into his psych and help you to understand that, He is young and in it for the long game and never going away. He will, if allowed to continue become the John Kerry of Gun Control in the next few years. Simply waiting for the political winds to change. Just like they are changing now. He will become the biggest threat to our children’s and their children’s 2nd Amendment Rights. Because unless the ideologues are stopped. The threat is always there. Here is an Ideologue of the most dangerous kind.
          The Education of David Hogg | Time
          https://time.com/6186538/david-hogg-guns-march-for-our-lives/

        • “Some dream of joining a cult. Others dream of running one.”

          And a grand total of *five* members.

          One instant AstroTurf ‘club’.

          How will they ever find a place large enough to hold a meeting?… 😉

    • When you search for them there seems to be a place holder type site with no information.

  22. “And I talked with a lot of young people there who were actually pretty supportive of the work that I was doing, along with some people who obviously were not, because not – nobody is always going to be in agreement about everything.”

    The great left-wing ‘amplification’ deception to make ‘support’ seem more than it really is. For example, “a lot of young people” – were those already an anti-gun group, were those 10 people or 100 people, ‘a lot’ compared to what… ? Notice how this is worded …. “a lot of young people there who were actually pretty supportive of the work that I was doing” vs just “some people who obviously were not” – bias cherry picking to give the impression he wants to give, that’s the same bias exhibited in debunked anti-gun studies.

    • .40 cal Booger, I also found, “who were actually pretty supportive of the work that I was doing” to be broad in context at best. “Pretty supportive” can be interpreted several ways and have either positive or negative meanings. Properly written there would be little room for interpretation. And therein lies the truth, which is, there is little truth in his comments.

  23. Hogg sees a lifetime of support from the guns for me and my bodyguards, but none for thee oligarchs, who seek to control us minions. Unfortunately for him and if he is smart enough (a big assumption) this is a situation where if you win (and guns are forcibly confiscated) you loose (no more sugar daddy)! And, if you loose you win, guns proliferate and you get to keep your income stream. I’m guessing he will choose to keep the money coming and we will David’s blithering for a long time!

  26. “ridiculous numbers of gun suicides that are preventable are unacceptable.”

    No, suicides are not preventable. They are delayable, sometimes for very long periods of time. The ideation for suicide, be it intentional or just for attention seeking attempts, never goes away. They may not act on it if a gun or any other method is not available but that’s only chance because there is nothing that stops them from seeking another method and that ideation is always there and you can’t prevent that and all it takes is one trigger to set it off and if they use a gun or some other method makes no difference. Because a gun is used does not mean its a leading ’cause’ in actuality, its only in numbers because even if they do not do it now because a gun was removed, and may never, its only a delay because someplace in their minds is that ideation that’s waiting to be triggered by something and when that trigger happens they will commit suicide (or attempt suicide again for attention seeking and sadly many of those go wrong and they are not found in time). Taking a gun away does not take the ideation away, it only delays the enactment of the ideation, and that ideation is what drives people to suicide and not the gun. Its why, overall, the mental health community prescribes so many drugs to people who attempted suicide, trying to suppress the ideation impulses – they know that ideation never goes away and if its triggered that suicide is likely to happen.

    One of the greatest injustices we ever did for people with suicide ideation is to let the left-wing focus the narrative on guns instead of the ideation. Suicide by any method, guns or not, continues or happens because the ideation exists.

    • Except Booger Brain you are wrong as usual.

      In reality studies have proven that the gun makes it many more times likely someone will be “successful” in committing suicide. As one first responder told me “I have saved many people who tried to commit suicide in a variety of ways including deliberately overdosing on prescription drugs, hanging, slitting wrists, drowing , turning on the gas oven or leaving the car running etc but “I have never saved anyone who blew their brains out”.

      Of course Booger Brain you will rant and scream from the rooftops that the person will eventually succeed. Another bold face lie because in many cases relatives get mental health counseling for trouble people and the majority “do not” go on to try again.

      BELOW FROM THE MOST FAMOUS STUDY FROM STANFORD UNIVERSITY.

      ‘Often impulsive acts’
      “Suicide attempts are often impulsive acts, driven by transient life crises,” the authors write. “Most attempts are not fatal, and most people who attempt suicide do not go on to die in a future suicide. Whether a suicide attempt is fatal depends heavily on the lethality of the method used — and firearms are extremely lethal. These facts focus attention on firearm access as a risk factor for suicide especially in the United States, which has a higher prevalence of civilian-owned firearms than any other country and one of the highest rates of suicide by firearm.”

      https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-ownership-associated-with-much-higher-suicide-risk.html#:~:text=While%20prior%20studies%20have%20found,an%20owner's%20first%20handgun%20acquisition.

      Now as usual you demented nut case try and lie your way out of this one.

      • dacian, the DUNDERHEAD! As usual, you present a “study” from a Leftist “school of higher (sic) learning). One that is based solely on their skewed stats and slanted opinions starting out. It seems that like MOST Leftist “studies” they start our with a conclusion and then go about trying to prove it using whatever means they feel necessary.
        I have no doubt that if a person is bent on committing suicide, it really doesn’t matter what route they take.
        Depression is a terrible condition. It is treatable ONLY when the person experiencing depression really wants to do something about it.
        You should try doing something about your “depression” over guns and your idiotic solutions (none of which work).

      • But to Hogg and his kind, including dacian and miner, your life belongs to THE STATE and suicide is “willful destruction of state property”.

  27. Hogg is still in speach writing kindergarten compared to Khamel Toe ‘VP’ Harris but he’s working on it…

  28. Hey, Hoggwash Boy, here’s your nuance……F You!!!

    Until you realize the issue is not “Gun Violence”, it is “Defective Citizen Violence.” we will know that your true agenda is eliminating armed citizens rather than violence. With that chasm, we have nothing in common. Well, maybe we do have something in common. We were both Parkland survivors…….me from 1700 miles, you from several miles…..neither were there, actual survivors. But, you were the one who lied about being an actual survivor.

  29. “If I’m truly dedicated to trying to end this gun violence,”, then I need to hammer the fokkin’ CRIMINALS who commit violent crimes with guns!

    Why can’t the idiots understand that?

  31. A fake knee ouch with a swing around fist and red arrow to the trhoat is kinda what I Like to do. Kinda got as step in if you misd

    • I like fighting. sux getting old, slow and skin cut like paper.
      Last year I won a 4 K1 championship, pretty damnd about that. But In done. I’ve just not got what it takes to be competitive. Them kicks I was getting hurt. just to proud, gotta a buzz when over heard girl in crowd comment on my kicking ability( ugh, it’s all I had left).
      Fella’s its a hard thing to do Is realize it’s time to quite. Somtimes it is.
      God bless each and ever American ❤🇺🇸

  33. Hogg brings up suicide. Funny, people were falling on their swords long before firearms were invented. Back in the dark ages when I was a child, nearly every house had a gun or two available, but the usual method of suicide was hanging for men and poisoning/overdose for women. Shooting oneself was a distant second.
    Next is the issue of kids being killed. Break it down into both who is being shot, and who is doing the shooting. Bet for those over 15 the majority are involved in or associated with a variety of criminals or criminal activities.
    Last issue on this. Gun control, gun bans, licensing, registration schemes, back ground checks, mental exams, or any of the other dumb ideas the disarmament crowd comes up with, will never have the desired/advertised effect. Simply because gun control only effects the law abiding who were never the problem to begin with. The only reason the usual authoritarian, statists want the citizens disarmed is that is how they gain and maintain power. They understand that what Mao said years ago is true. Political power comes ultimately from the barrel of a gun. Control who has the guns and you control the populace.

  34. While suffering, you know, through, like, his writing style, I kept thinking, you know, that maybe, like, he was a 13 year old girl making diary entries?

  36. Well, you know, uh, we can agree that , well, there is a constitutional right to, uh, not have your firearms ownership infringed on in any way, you know.

  37. HUH? He wrote this, right? How the hell did someone this illiterate get into “Haavad”?

  42. By continuously using the worn-out and actually meaningless term “gun violence” more times than I wanted to count, and not one of his words contained the words “crime”, “criminal”, or law-breaking”, it shows his focus is still on gun control as a solution and ignores the actual problem of criminal activity. I saw a quick reference to mental health in there, but his meanderings were hard to follow. I do have to give him at least a tad of credit for having the gumption to discuss and (maybe) try to learn something about why other people oppose his ideas. The jury is out though on whether this is him trying to be more open-minded or is this more of informational journey to “know thy enemy”?

  45. Oh look, Hogg is looking for another 15 minutes of fame. And I see he is suffering from diarrhea of the mouth.

  46. So David’s going to learn to shoot. Well good, that’s a big change from guys shooting in or on him.

  47. Ok, this is a stretch, but imagine for a moment that Davey comes to his senses on firearms. As in, think of the true extent of the resulting existential crisis.

    Can he go back to living without daddy Bloombuck’s hand up his ass working his mouth like a sock puppet? Can he live with himself if he doesn’t?

  48. @Sid goldfarb md: I’ve been saying this for years, there needs to be another database, call it NIMS, that shows who is taking the drugs that say one the label that they “may cause suicidal thoughts”. Those people should not be permitted to purchase guns after they start taking the meds. It’s pretty clear that, in most cases, those committing suicide have sought help at some point. There are, of course exceptions to who can purchase, a person showing a restraining order, someone taking the drugs for other purposes (smoking cessation), etc. Such a DB will not save everyone, nothing can, but my guess is that if will significantly reduce suicide by gun, some mass shootings, and a high number of domestic murder suicides. As a physician, perhaps you have access to information I don’t regarding medications high profile (schools, Malls, Walmarts, etc.) mass shooters were taking?

  49. Dacian the dimwit, why are we even discussing suicides as it relates to gun control. My right to self-defense has nothing at all to do with people having a mental health condition that might lead to their death. Dr. Kevorkian wrote a book on how to commit suicide. My mother used it to take her life, so yeah, I care about suicides but it has nothing to do with gun control discussions. I’ve known 5 people who took their own life in my lifetime, only 1 used a gun. Again, access to guns and guns in general are NOT the problem.

  51. He is talking around in circles achieving nothing, I’ll bet he’s aiming at LAW SCHOOL.

  52. IIRC, Mr. Hogg wasn’t in the building where the shootings took place.

    Like AOC, who [apparently] died several times even though she wasn’t actually in the Capitol on Jan 6th.

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