David Hogg is a prominent gun control activist who became an activist after attending the 2018 Stoneman High School shooting in Florida. Regardless of your stance on the Second Amendment, it is difficult to imagine any of us surviving such a tragedy.
Mr. Hogg regularly advocates for stricter gun control laws, and he took that message to a New Hampshire town hall this week.
There he experienced a different kind of scary situation and was confronted by someone who didn't agree with his views on guns.
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„I'll never give up my gun.“
A woman who lived under communism in China approached the microphone during a question and answer session.
Her views on guns were very different from Hogg's.
Lily Tan Williams told Hogg: „Hello, my name is Lily Tan Williams. Welcome to my 'live free or die' state.“
„Actually, I'm a Chinese immigrant who survived communism,“ she said. „And under Mao Zedong, 40 million people starved to death after Mao sold out communism. And 20 million people were murdered and died during his Cultural Revolution.“
Williams was referring to former Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong, who ruled from 1943 to 1976.
Williams continued, „So, David, can you tonight, as a gun owner, assure me that the government in Washington, D.C., will never, ever be an oppressive government?“ he asked.
„Can you guarantee that?“ she added.
Hogg replied: „There is no way to guarantee that any government will not become tyrannical.“
The answer wasn't good enough for Lily Tan Williams.
“Then the gun control debate is over, because I will never give up my guns,” she declared. „Never, never.“
„And you should go to China to see how gun control works for the Chinese Communist dictatorship,“ Williams concluded.
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China has very strict gun regulations
China has some of the strictest gun laws in the world. CNN reported in 2021 that after the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949, its leaders ultimately „decided that an armed population was a threat to the security and stability of a still fragile and newly victorious country.“ ” reported. For Communist Party leaders, weapons are instruments of revolution, and in 1927 Chairman Mao Zedong famously declared that „political power grows from the barrel of a gun.“
„Just two years after the founding of the People's Republic, the government took steps to ban its citizens from buying, selling, or manufacturing guns for themselves,“ CNN reported. “Over the years, several smaller ministries have passed gun control laws, but the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, in which the Chinese military used deadly force to crush university student-led protests in Beijing, was a turning point. became.“
The report added: „Just a few months later, the government implemented new gun controls as an extension of a broader crackdown on all forms of public dissent and organized resistance.“
Lily Tan Williams has a point. Most of us, like her, cannot imagine what it was like to live under such an oppressive authoritarian regime. We need to respect her experience.
So should David Hogg.