The Delusions of Children

David Hogg, one of the students who was in the high school during the Valentine's Day shooting, has made a number of public statements. Most of his assertions are misguided or misinformed.

He seems to spend very little time blaming that actual shooter, Nikolas Cruz, not does he spend any time condemning the various officials who were given notice that Cruz was disturbed and possibly planning a school shooting but who did nothing. Neither does Hogg spend any time condemning the police who stayed outside the building until the shooting ended. These are all appropriate targets of Hogg's rage and changes in the policies that they followed might prevent future shootings.

Hogg's main target is the AR-15-style rifle that Cruz used. There is nothing magical about these guns. Yes, they are more powerful than a pistol but they are less powerful than a hunting gun or than military weapons used prior to Viet Nam. During the 1960s, the military decided that most combat was done at fairly close range and that a lighter weapon was sufficient. The idea that these are somehow more powerful than other civilian weapons and therefor to dangerous for civilians to posses is misinformed.

It should also be pointed out that Cruz did not used high-capacity magazines. He carried a backpack full of 10-round magazines and reloaded as needed. This is typical of mass shootings. Many guns can be reloaded quickly. Even the lowly revolver has speed-loaders available and can be reloaded within a few seconds.

Very few mass shootings are performed with AR-15s. Most are done with a pistol or a pistol in combination with a rifle or shotgun.

Something that was unusual about this shooting is how it ended. Cruz only carried the one gun. He shot at people until it jammed then he dropped it and slipped out with the students. If he had carried pistols then the shooting might have gone on longer.

So, eliminating the AR-15 would not have stopped the shooting and might have made it worse.

Also, classmate have said that Cruz showed them his AR-15 and pistols two years ago. He would have been 17 then so an adult (probably his mother) bought them for him. Raising the age would not have helped.

Hogg totally misunderstands how politicians and the NRA work. He has accused Senators Rubio and McCain of having blood on their hands for accepting money from the NRA. He even had a price tag on his microphone during his speech at the March for Our Lives event. This represented the amount the NRA has given Marco Rubio divided by the number of students in Florida. This came out to $1.05. Hogg meant to show how little value Rubio put on a student's life but it actually shows how small the NRA contributions were.

In Hogg's mind, Congress should do the right thing and pass what he sees as common sense gun laws. What stops them is the NRA which buy them off. Without NRA money, Congress would quickly pass gun legislation.

While it's true that the NRA donates millions to candidates, the amounts spent are not all that high. The figures that Hogg used say that Rubio received around $1 million since he first ran in 2010 and the NRA has spent around $2.3 million attacking Rubio's opponents in that time. That would account for two elections plus Rubio's presidential campaign. Rubio raised over $25 million on his 2016 Senate campaign alone so the NRA money only amounted to 2% of the money he raised. That rises to 6% if you count the money spent to defeat anti-gun opponents.

The NRA's real strength is not in the amounts it spends on candidates. It is in the NRA's ability to mobilize voters. They score candidates' records and publicize the score. Candidates who they rate highly are given money. Even without the NRA contributions, these candidates are still pro-gun. 30% of Americans own guns and a large percentage of them consider a candidate's stance on guns when voting.

In the 1990s, Democrats controlled Congress and passed some anti-gun legislation. Many of the moderate Democrats who voted for this lost the next election. This was widely attributed to moderate, gun-owning swing voters. Similarly, Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the 2000 Presidential election because he couldn't carry his home state of Tennessee. This was also attributed to his role in passing the gun legislation.

In other words, politicians are pro-gun because their constituency is pro-gun. The NRA is just a proxy for the gun owners.

But Hogg is too young to understand that well-meaning people can have different opinions about complex subjects and the assault-weapon ban in the 1990s expired before he was born.

Put it all together and you have a young man who is very vocal about his beliefs but very misinformed about the causes he is championing.