David Hogg Interrupts Hearing on Proposed Assault Weapons Ban, Tells Lawmaker: 'You Are Perpetuating Violence'

Mar. 15, 2025

Activist and mass shooting survivorDavid Hoggwas escorted out of the room Wednesday during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on a proposed ban of assault weapons.

Hogg, who was astudent in at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High Schoolin Parkland, Florida, in 2018 when agunman opened fire and killed 17, interrupted Arizona Rep.Andy Biggsafter he suggested that a bill to ban certain semi-automatic rifles would prevent U.S. citizens from protecting themselves from an “invasion on our southern border,“NBC News reports.

“Guess what, those guns are coming from the United States of America. They aren’t coming from Mexico,” Hogg, 22, added as he was escorted from the hearing room. “You are reframing the point of a mass shooter, sir. Sir, you are perpetuating violence.”

Hogg, a Harvard senior, postedvideo of the outburst on Twitter.

In a follow-up tweet, Hogg explained why he felt obligated to speak up the way he did.

“We have a duty to interrupt white nationalists when they spew harmful rhetoric. We have to, they’re using the same talking points as mass shooter manifestos,” he said.

In a video message accompanying the post, Hogg offered his “reflections and context” about his defiant act.

Craig Hudson/Bloomberg via Getty

“Before that video was recorded there was a Republican that was repeatedly saying that there was a Mexican invasion, a Hispanic invasion … I understand we’re going to have policy disagreements, so be it,“he said in the video. “The reality is: these mass shooters are reiterating talking points that sure as hell sound a lot like what these Republicans are saying … if you’re saying something that mass shooters are also agreeing with, maybe you shouldn’t be saying that same thing at the same time.”

Biggs later appeared on Fox News in aninterview with host Tucker Carlson, who called Hogg “a creepy little publicity seeker” and, laughing, mocked him as a “low IQ Harvard student” and a “self-righteous child with no idea what he’s talking about.”

Biggs and Carlson suggested that Hogg attempted an “insurrection” for interrupting an official congressional proceeding, comparing a gun violence survivor’s verbal protest tothe deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

source: people.com