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Navy SEAL Vet Takes Apart David Hogg's School Safety Plan Piece by Piece

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Former Navy SEAL turned entrepreneur and pundit Eli Crane has dismantled anti-gun activist David Hogg’s recently tweeted school safety plan in a lengthy email that took Hogg’s proposals apart, piece by piece.

Hogg, the student at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, who turned the February mass shooting at the schoool into his personal vehicle to celebrity, tweeted out his five-point plan last month.

And he’s seen it roundly criticized on social media.

Hogg called for CDC research into gun violence, universal background checks, the digitization of ATF records, and the ever popular (among liberals) bans on so-called “assault weapons” and high-capacity magazines.

Some familiar faces have already weighed in, including Kyle Kashuv, a fellow student at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas who has emerged as a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights.

However, Crane’s exploration of the logical flaws in Hogg’s tweet was arguably one of the most compelling.

“Recently, gun control activist and Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg tweeted a plan to curb violence with an emphasis on gun control,” Crane wrote in his email, published Tuesday by Independent Journal Review.

Do you agree with Eli Crane?

“Though I feel for David and every other victim of this senseless violence, I am once again very disappointed to see another young American with zero respect and understanding for our Constitution and common sense.”

This wasn’t just because of the fact that Crane is a “U.S. veteran and member of the Navy SEAL teams,” who “swore (an) oath to uphold and defend the very rights that David and other Americans are working so hard to abolish.”

Instead, he said it was based on his experience.

“The irony of David’s proposed plan is shortsighted, incomplete and pretty much worthless. I just did a threat assessment of a school three weeks ago in my home state of (Arizona) with an emphasis on active shooter,” Crane wrote.

“My main focus was on first figuring out the multiple ways I could commit the crime myself and then working backward from there — exposing weaknesses and suggesting improvements to keep out those who wish to do harm.

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“I can tell you that not one thing David proposed would stop me or anyone else from a whole lot of carnage on that campus or any other for that matter,” he noted.

“David is proposing that we allocate more taxpayer dollars for gun violence research along with mandatory universal background checks and digitized ATF records. He is also calling for a complete ban on high-capacity magazines and ‘assault weapons.’

“I’m not sure if David and other liberals are able to comprehend that EVERY single one of these mass shootings, murders, and gun-related crimes that are so prevalent and concerning to all Americans showcase the complete disregard for any of our existing laws.

“It is illegal to murder one or more innocent people for any reason. It is illegal to bring a firearm to a school. It is illegal to discharge a firearm in a school or within city limits.

“These are a few of the major laws broken at every single school shooting. Yet Hogg and others ironically believe that the laws that they are proposing will be the ones mass (murderers) actually follow,” he wrote.

As for the first point, Crane noted that he’d filled out extensive paperwork for every gun he’s ever purchased.

“The gun show loophole (the sale of a firearm from one private citizen to another without a background check) seems to be the main issue Hogg and others have with our current system, which is one of the few suggestions I would be willing to take a hard look at,” Crane said. “This still would not be effective in stopping the evil epidemic plaguing our schools and our children.

“As far as allocating funding for research, this is one area I agree with David. It is what I believe we should be researching that we differ on,” he continued. “David believes that we should be funding the research of gun violence. I think that would be a waste of time and money.

“If we are going to research anything it needs to be something that will save the most lives NOW. We should be researching the most effective and affordable ways to harden these schools that are unfortunately very soft targets.”

As for ATF record digitization, Crane said that issues like that came down to distrusting power wielded by a federal government that’s often dismissive of Second Amendment concerns:

“Quite simply, most Americans do not trust the federal government,” he wrote.

Crane also noted the possibility of a second revolution against tyranny — something that the country’s founders had in mind when they wrote the Second Amendment.

“Most Americans have grown up in such a protective bubble provided by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans along with the protective framework provided by our founders,” Crane wrote. “Quite simply, if Mr. Hogg and others are successful and abolish our Second Amendment as we know it, those of us that are currently able to protect him and others (won’t be able to) should the day (come when the) overreach of our government becomes so great that a second revolution is necessary.”

Crane ended with a lesson all Americans need to remember.

“Academics and activists may yell the loudest and throw the biggest tantrums, but just as Hogg has again illustrated with this proposal, being a victim does not qualify you to champion any kind positive reform,” he wrote.

And that says it all.

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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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