'Assault Weapons' and Hogging the Spotlight
David Hogg, anti-gun bloviator extraordinaire (in his own mind, at least) is back on the “assault weapon” issue, this time trying to show us some personal expertise. But, as usual, there are some problems with his assertions.
Take a good look at that target. Hogg states, “I could shoot a pretty tight grouping at 20 yards.” He references 7.62mm rounds, not the 5.56mm rounds commonly fired from the AR-15 platform. But there are holes in that target from at least two different caliber bullets. And the very idea of David Hogg lecturing anyone on their “need for more range time” is giggle-inducing.
Also, that’s not a “pretty tight grouping,” not at 20 yards; I could do better blindfolded. But I don’t think that’s the major takeaway here. Let’s look first at the text of David’s tweet.
“You don’t need 30 round mags.” Well, David, the word “need” appears nowhere in the Second Amendment, or anywhere else in the Bill of Rights, but that’s not the point. First, you don’t get to tell me — or anyone — what we may need or not need. It’s none of your business. Second, assuming a self-defense situation, you won’t be on a range. It will likely be dark, adrenaline will turn your arms into spaghetti, you’ll be frightened; you may be lying on the ground, and you may be facing multiple attackers. The situation won’t be anything like the calm, controlled environment of a shooting range.
“If you can’t stop whatever you need to with 10 7.62 rounds.” I’m not sure why the full stop here; David likes to make a lot of hay over how “educated” he is, but that apparently doesn’t extend to written English; I’m willing to write that off as a nitpick, though. Most of the objection to this statement can be covered as above, and as for the 7.62 rounds — David, your target has been punctured by at least two different weapons. Why do you only mention the 7.62mm, assuming that was one of them? Did you fire both?
“You got bigger problems.” Yes, like having to put up with dissembling gun-grabbers.
Yes, I said dissembling. I’m not certain Hogg is lying about anything in this tweet, although the target and certain of his statements — and previous statements — make me skeptical in the extreme. And anti-gunners have a history, a documented history, of outright lying about their experiences with guns. I’ve documented a few in the past.
For one, we can go all the way back to 2016, when New York Daily News columnist Gersh Kuntzman described his “experience” firing an AR-15:
The actual experience of firing the AR15 was nothing less than traumatizing. The recoil bruised my shoulder. The brass shell casings disoriented me as they flew past my face. The smell of sulfur and destruction made me sick. The explosions — loud like a bomb — gave me a temporary case of PTSD. For at least an hour after firing the gun just a few times, I was anxious and irritable.
Let’s unpack that: The AR-15 platform uses a cartridge of very moderate power. Military drill instructors routinely place the stocks of the M16 series, which derives from the AR-15 and uses the same cartridge, against their crotch and fire it, to demonstrate the lack of recoil. The AR-pattern ejects cases to the right and down, not “past (the shooter’s) face.” Unless Kuntzman was firing 5.56mm rounds inexplicably loaded with black powder, there would have been no smell of sulfur, and as for “destruction,” that’s just hyper-emotional BS. Any range would have required Kuntzman to wear hearing protection, and the AR isn’t that loud to begin with. I won’t even dignify the “PTSD” statement with a response.
My conclusion? Kuntzman has never handled, much less fired, an AR-15. He made the whole thing up out of whole cloth.
For another, let’s look ahead to 2018, when Christine Lavin of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote this about owning a Glock:
I opened my glove compartment, took out my Glock 17, and flipped off the safety. It was the first time it had ever come out of the glove compartment for any reason other than target practice. I rolled down the driver’s window and held the gun in front of my chest in both hands, as I’d been taught.
Umm. What safety? Anyone who has owned or handled a Glock — I have two, and my wife has one — knows that the Glock has no external safety. There is nothing to “flip off” except, perhaps, careless journalists who don’t do their homework. This alone is enough to destroy Ms. Lavin’s credibility on this issue.
Once again: I don’t know the circumstances behind David Hogg’s latest outburst. But that target, along with his track record, makes me pretty certain that Mr. Hogg is, once more, making things up.
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