David Hogg, Other Parkland Activists Politicize Texas School Shooting Hours After It Happens
A tragic incident has again brought criminal violence into the national headlines — but before all of the details have emerged, it’s already being used for political propaganda by the left.
On Friday morning, a school shooting occurred at Santa Fe High School in Texas, near the city of Houston. Reports indicate that around eight people may have been killed in the attack, and at least one police officer was reportedly injured trying to stop the killer.
Outlets including USA Today have stated that suspected explosive devices may have also been found in the school, raising the possibility of a well-planned attack that could have involved multiple perpetrators.
As of around noon Eastern time, not much is known about how the tragic crime was carried out or who the attackers are, but that didn’t stop liberal pundits from jumping on the incident to push their politics.
Leading the charge was David Hogg, the controversial student from Parkland, Florida who has previously called all NRA members murderers.
Just hours after the Texas shooting unfolded, Hogg used Twitter to suggest that anybody who disagreed with his gun views was only pretending to care about kids.
“Get ready for two weeks of media coverage of politicians acting like they give a s*** when in reality they just want to boost their approval ratings before midterms,” he spat out on social media.
The message was clear and incredibly cynical: Any conservative elected official who tries to address school violence without infringing on constitutional gun rights is an uncaring mouthpiece who sees only votes, not children.
Hogg has previously made similar comments about Florida lawmakers including Senator Marco Rubio, who has tried to find bipartisan solutions in response to the school shooting that occurred in his state.
Never mind the fact that Rubio has children of his own and knows what it’s like to worry about their safety. A narrative of vitriol and us-versus-them seems more important to the teenage activist.
A look at Hogg’s Twitter feed on Friday showed no words of comfort or empathy for the students affected by the Texas attack; Instead, every message since the the incident was some type of political or an anti-NRA message.
Trashing the NRA was also at the top of the agenda for Cameron Kasky, another young activist involved in the “March for Our Lives” protests.
“At least 8 students have been shot and killed at Santa Fe High School. Prepare to watch the NRA boast about getting higher donations,” he posted on Friday.
“Prepare for the right-wing media to attack the survivors,” he continued.
There is no known connection between the National Rifle Association, which promotes safe and law-abiding gun ownership, with the attack in Texas. Of course, this hasn’t stopped anti-Second Amendment advocates from blaming the NRA for every possible violent crime in the past.
Ironically, spotlight-clamoring activists like Hogg and Kasky are doing exactly what they claim to oppose: politicizing tragedies, while lashing out at people who had nothing to do with the crimes and painting anybody with a slightly different viewpoint as blood-soaked monsters.
What Hogg and Kasky seem to have missed is that NRA donations soared because of the liberal activists’ hateful rhetoric. Americans were responding to being told they had blood splattered on their faces — to use Hogg’s analogy.
By the same token, Kasky helped create the atmosphere of distrust and finger-pointing that he’s now lamenting, oblivious to the fact that a huge amount of divisive vitriol is coming from his own side.
The truth is that every American, no matter which party they belong to, is saddened and frustrated by school violence. Not a single sane person wants to see these events in the news. There is disagreement over how to prevent them, but not that they should be prevented.
Refusing to even consider proposed solutions from conservatives — making sure there are armed personnel in schools, for example — makes people like Hogg look very disingenuous. You cannot claim to want unity and joint problem solving when you simultaneously smear five million law-abiding Americans as hateful murderers.
Instead of coming together from a position of goodwill to find solutions that don’t shred the Constitution, figures like Hogg and Kasky are themselves using a tragedy to push a political agenda. That’s part of the problem, but they don’t seem to have noticed.
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