Gun control activist David Hogg mocked President Trump’s call for armed security in places of worship the day after a man stormed a security-free Pittsburgh synagogue and killed 11 congregants.
Trump reacted to the attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue by lamenting the absence of armed security. He said, “If they had protection inside, the result would have been far better. This is a dispute that will always exist, I suspect, but if they had protection inside the synagogue maybe it could have been a very…different situation.”
He noted that the lack of security allowed the attacker “to do things, unfortunately, that he shouldn’t have been able to do.”
Hogg chose not to deal head-on with Trump’s assertion that the ability for someone to shoot back could have completely altered the outcome of the attack. Rather, he mocked the idea of a “good guy with a gun” altogether, suggesting it is just part of a larger effort to sell more guns.
Ironically, Hogg gained national attention as a gun control proponent when his school, gun-free Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, was attacked on February 14, 2018. The attacker struck Building 12 on campus and there was no one inside the building who could shoot back.
Moreover, the one armed deputy outside the building–former Broward County Deputy Scot Peterson–stood outside the building rather than entering to confront the attacker.
As with the Tree of Life Synagogue attack, the attack on the Parkland high school could have completely different if the attacker had been met by a good guy or good woman with a gun.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.