After the Annunciation Church tragedy, David Hogg reappears to lecture America, calling President Trump a “coward.” But here’s the truth CNN won’t tell you: Chicago bleeds every weekend, strict gun laws fail, and 58% of gun deaths come from suicide—not mass shootings.
In this episode, Ryan tears down the lies, exposes blue city hypocrisy, and lays out the gray solutions no one else will say.
🎙️ Stay in the Fray Podcast is where we cut through noise, crush bad takes, and get real about the issues that matter.
👉 Tap Follow on Spotify and rate us ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to keep this show in the fight.
00:00:00
Another school shooting at Annunciation Church in
00:00:03
Minnesota, right on cue, outcomes the left's favorite
00:00:07
beta mascot, David Hogue. So after the latest tragedy,
00:00:12
here's David Hogue. His big brave message to
00:00:16
President Trump. Roll it.
00:00:20
Has the power to do something about this after Parkland, he
00:00:23
repeatedly said. You guys are cowards.
00:00:25
You're not going to do anything because you're afraid of the
00:00:27
NRA. There are around 500 million
00:00:30
firearms in this country. That's not a typo.
00:00:33
That's not a rounding up error. That's more guns than people.
00:00:38
That's nearly two guns for every adult in America.
00:00:48
Welcome to Stay in the Fray podcast.
00:00:50
I'm your host, Ryan. This is where headlines get hit
00:00:52
hard, hypocracy gets shredded, and the absurd are laughed at.
00:00:57
If you want comfort, this isn't your place.
00:01:00
If you want blunt and unfiltered, I'm your guy.
00:01:03
Join me in the Fray, all you. Had to do is just listen up.
00:01:09
Hey everyone, good to be back. Let me set the stage for you
00:01:13
real quick. Another school shooting at
00:01:15
Annunciation Church in Minnesota.
00:01:18
I talked about it on the last show a little bit.
00:01:20
Tragedy lives lost, families wrecked.
00:01:24
Right on cue outcomes the left's favorite beta mascot, David
00:01:30
Hogue. You remember this kid, right?
00:01:33
He wasn't even in the classroom, but somehow turned into the
00:01:37
Democrats poster boy for gun bans.
00:01:40
CNN hands him a mic like he's the Pope of Parkland, and every
00:01:44
time there's a headline he reappears to scold America.
00:01:47
And here's what pisses me off about this guy the most.
00:01:51
Hogue only shows up when there's a shooting in the suburbs or one
00:01:56
that's glamorized on television. Meanwhile, kids are getting shot
00:02:00
every night in Chicago, Baltimore, DC, and so on.
00:02:05
All cities with the strictest gun laws in the nation, by the
00:02:08
way. So where the hell are you then,
00:02:10
David? Where's the press tour for those
00:02:13
kids? So after the latest tragedy,
00:02:15
here's David Ho, his big brave message to President Trump.
00:02:21
Roll it. Has the power to do something
00:02:25
about this after Parkland he repeatedly said you guys are
00:02:28
cowards. You're not going to do anything
00:02:30
because you're afraid of the NRA.
00:02:31
We need to do something about guns.
00:02:32
That is what he said and then he met with the NRA and did
00:02:35
nothing. Why?
00:02:36
Because he is a coward. And my message to Donald Trump
00:02:38
is that you are a coward Sir. You are not going to do anything
00:02:42
about this issue because you were terrified of the NRA even
00:02:44
though you have the power to save 10s of thousands of lives.
00:02:48
You were the strongest president in modern American history, with
00:02:51
a chokehold over your party and both the chambers of Congress.
00:02:54
You have the power to end this, but you are not going to because
00:02:57
you're a damn coward. A coward, huh?
00:03:04
That's adorable. David thinks he's being tough
00:03:07
telling off the president. News flash, champ, it's not even
00:03:11
the president's job. That responsibility sits with
00:03:14
local leaders. Trump, like a lot of us,
00:03:17
understands one basic fact of reality.
00:03:21
You cannot simply round up the guns.
00:03:24
Period. End of story.
00:03:27
So why is he a coward, exactly? On top of that, there's this
00:03:30
little thing called, I don't know, the Second Amendment.
00:03:33
Maybe you've heard of it. You are a misinformed pundit,
00:03:37
Pogue. So no, Trump isn't a coward.
00:03:41
The real cowards are the politicians in the blue cities
00:03:44
who hide behind empty press conferences instead of
00:03:48
protecting the people bleeding out on the streets every weekend
00:03:51
that Hogue and his cheerleaders don't want to admit.
00:03:55
There are around 500 million firearms in this country.
00:03:59
That's not a typo. That's not a rounding up error.
00:04:03
That's more guns than people. That's nearly two guns for every
00:04:07
adult in America, and you're sure as hell not going to pry
00:04:09
them out of 100 million homes without setting off.
00:04:12
But instead of acknowledging that reality, the reform
00:04:15
screamers pretend if we just sign one more bill, evil will
00:04:19
vanish. Meanwhile, the real people live
00:04:22
with gunfire every single weekend.
00:04:25
Let's talk about Chicago Labor Day weekend this year.
00:04:28
I think I mentioned that as well.
00:04:29
Last show, eight were killed, 50 wounded.
00:04:33
That's not some rare freak event, by the way.
00:04:36
This last weekend, seven were killed and 19 shot.
00:04:39
It's just a normal weekend in the Windy City.
00:04:43
Keep in mind, Illinois has some of the strictest gun laws in the
00:04:47
country. You got permits, waiting
00:04:49
periods, background checks, registries, layer upon layer of
00:04:54
reform. And yet the criminals in Chicago
00:04:58
treat the place like it's a live fire training range.
00:05:01
So enter Trump. He looks at the chaos and he
00:05:04
says, hey, maybe we need to send in some federal help.
00:05:08
Maybe we need to try something new since clearly nothing else
00:05:11
is working. And the reaction from the Blue
00:05:13
City mayor, they don't say thank you.
00:05:17
They don't say, finally, let's do this.
00:05:19
Someone's trying to help us stop the bloodshed of our own city's
00:05:23
civilians. They clutch their pearls and cry
00:05:26
about Trump being a dictator, an authoritarian.
00:05:29
You've got kids bleeding out on the sidewalk.
00:05:32
But the priority is making sure that the president doesn't look
00:05:35
like he did something right. That is the cowardice Hoag.
00:05:40
Local accountability gets skipped because admitting
00:05:43
failure is too humiliating for the so-called leaders.
00:05:48
Instead they redirect the anger. They put David Hogue on TV to
00:05:52
lecture the president. They didn't even control city
00:05:55
policing. As if Trump can just snap his
00:05:58
fingers and erase crime. The media plays along, of
00:06:01
course, selling this fantasy that a president who respects
00:06:05
the Constitution is somehow afraid of the NRA.
00:06:09
I know David Trump isn't scared of the NRA.
00:06:11
He's just aware of the Second Amendment.
00:06:14
It's a big difference. All right, let's dig into the
00:06:16
numbers that no one on CNN wants to talk about.
00:06:19
In 2023, nearly 47 people died from gun related injuries.
00:06:24
That's a huge number, right? That's the one that they splash
00:06:27
across every Chiron, the one they scream into the cameras.
00:06:31
With 47 dead, America's a war zone.
00:06:34
Now peel back the headline, dig a little deeper, and you'll
00:06:39
realize something that's inconvenient for you. 58% of
00:06:43
those deaths were suicides. That's more than half.
00:06:47
I'm not great at math, but I know that much.
00:06:50
Most gun deaths aren't mass shootings.
00:06:52
They're not even homicides. They're people turning the gun
00:06:56
on themselves. Mental health crisis, despair,
00:07:00
addiction, depression. The very stuff politicians
00:07:03
pretend doesn't exist because it doesn't make for fiery press
00:07:07
conferences. You see, blaming the guns is
00:07:10
easy. It's lazy, it's profitable.
00:07:14
You just point in an object and scream about banning it.
00:07:18
But actually dealing with why so many Americans want to pull the
00:07:21
trigger on themselves, on others, That requires funding
00:07:26
mental health, rebuilding families, tackling culture.
00:07:30
Stuff that takes work. And it's not comfortable.
00:07:34
Let's be honest, these politicians don't want to do
00:07:37
hard work when they can just grab a sound bite.
00:07:41
So when David Ho lectures the country about the NRA being the
00:07:44
problem, I can't help but laugh. Sorry, kid, the NRA didn't cause
00:07:49
27 suicides last year, didn't create broken homes,
00:07:54
fatherless kids, opioid addiction, or a culture that
00:07:58
glorifies violence that's deeper than a simple gun lobby.
00:08:03
Here is the ugly truth. You can confiscate every firearm
00:08:07
in America tomorrow and you'll still have despair.
00:08:11
You'll still have people ready to hurt themselves or others.
00:08:15
They'll just do it with pills or knives or bombs or whatever else
00:08:20
they can find. Guns amplifies it, sure, but the
00:08:23
root is human brokenness, the thing no one wants to admit
00:08:27
because solving it isn't as easy as a ban or a tweet.
00:08:32
So let's try to have an adult conversation about it for once.
00:08:36
All right, let's be clear. This show now is called Stay in
00:08:40
the Fray. If you've been with me a while,
00:08:41
you know it used to be called Stay in the Gray podcast.
00:08:45
Now we're fighting through the lies and we RIP apart all the
00:08:48
bullshit. But I'll admit, when it comes to
00:08:51
guns, there is one spot that I can dip back into the Gray area.
00:08:55
Because here's the deal. The far left and the far right
00:08:59
on this issue are both embarrassing.
00:09:01
On one side you've got the Pearl clutching progressives who think
00:09:04
if we just ban the AR Fifteens, crime will magically disappear.
00:09:07
It's a cute fairy tale. But on the other hand, you've
00:09:09
got the Internet commandos saying arm every secretary, arm
00:09:13
the lunch lady, arm grandma like we're turning the PTA into a
00:09:17
Navy SEAL team. Calm down, I am all for armed
00:09:22
security in schools. I've said that in the last show
00:09:24
and that is one of my solutions. But real trained professionals
00:09:29
whose job it is to protect the kids?
00:09:31
Handing holsters to every adult with a school ID?
00:09:34
That's fantasy camp, not policy. So what's the grey?
00:09:39
What actually works? Well, first, schools.
00:09:42
We don't need Miss Henderson the algebra teacher whipping a
00:09:44
pistol out of a chalk drawer. We need trained officers, like I
00:09:48
just said, security on campus who actually know how to handle
00:09:52
a weapon under pressure. Second, background checks. close
00:09:57
the loopholes. Private sales.
00:09:59
The so-called Charleston loophole let's a gun sale go
00:10:03
through. If the check isn't done in three
00:10:04
days, fix it. You can't scream about safety
00:10:07
while leaving the back doors wide open.
00:10:09
Honestly, we don't need to sell four types of automatic weapons
00:10:13
to the disgruntled looking 18 year old at the counter who's
00:10:17
one bad day away from a headline.
00:10:19
Third, mandatory training. People need to take a test and
00:10:23
prove they can do a gun, shoot a gun.
00:10:25
I mean we have to take a test that proves you can parallel
00:10:28
part before you can drive your Honda Civic, but somehow
00:10:31
carrying a deadly weapon is treated like a right without
00:10:33
responsibility card. No gun ownership comes with
00:10:37
weight. Learn the basics, get certified,
00:10:40
handle it the right way. And 4th penalties.
00:10:44
If you're carrying an unlicensed firearm in public, hammer them.
00:10:48
Throw the book. If you're on your own property,
00:10:51
locked and loaded, that's your business.
00:10:52
That is your right. This is what the cowards in
00:10:55
government refused to admit. There is a balance.
00:10:59
Rights matter. Responsibility matters.
00:11:02
You can protect the Second Amendment without handing an
00:11:05
AR15 to a school janitor. And you can demand smarter rules
00:11:08
without confiscating grandpa's hunting rifle.
00:11:10
So that's the Gray. That's the adult conversation.
00:11:14
It's not the screaming match where one side pretends banning
00:11:16
plastic and metal fixes culture and the other side pretends that
00:11:20
every Little League coach needs a Glock to feel safe.
00:11:23
Grow up, both of you. Let's go back to Chicago for a
00:11:27
second. This city is the Super Bowl of
00:11:29
political hypocrisy. Every weekend, body counts look
00:11:33
like a war zone. Mayor Brandon Johnson somehow
00:11:37
thinks the problem is what exactly?
00:11:39
Too many people going to jail? Here's the man himself.
00:11:44
Listen to this. The mayor of this city, I can
00:11:47
tell you that Chicagoans are not calling for military occupation.
00:11:53
They are calling for the same thing that we've been calling
00:11:55
for for some time, and that's investment.
00:11:58
What safe cities across America all have in common, they invest
00:12:02
in people. And that's what we're doing in
00:12:04
Chicago. We need the federal resources to
00:12:07
make sure that we're building more affordable housing,
00:12:09
expanding mental and behavioral healthcare, education, all of
00:12:13
these things that could reduce crime and provide real community
00:12:17
safety. Instead of spending hundreds of
00:12:19
millions of dollars for publicity stunt to invoke chaos
00:12:23
and terror, the federal government should spend that
00:12:25
money on proven solutions to crime and violence reduction.
00:12:30
We cannot incarcerate our way out of violence.
00:12:34
We've already tried that and we've ended up with the largest
00:12:37
prison population in the world without solving the problems of
00:12:41
crime and violence, the addiction on jails and
00:12:44
incarceration in this country. We have moved past that.
00:12:47
It is racist, it is immoral, it is unholy, and it is not the way
00:12:52
to drive violence down. Oh goodness, look at Governor
00:12:55
Cheeseburger behind him. I don't even know where to
00:12:57
start. That's just genius stuff right
00:13:00
there, Brendan. Jailing criminals isn't the
00:13:02
answer. Really.
00:13:04
What the hell is the point of having laws?
00:13:07
Do you hear yourself when you speak, Mayor Johnson?
00:13:10
Instead, you go on about investing in education, after
00:13:13
school programs, community gardens, whatever the buzzword
00:13:17
of the week is. Chicago has had decades of
00:13:21
investment, billions shoveled into programs, consultants,
00:13:25
nonprofits, commissions. And what has the result been?
00:13:29
The city is still bleeding. Where'd all the money go?
00:13:32
Spoiler alert, not into safety, apparently, or it's just not
00:13:36
working. And of course, then he actually
00:13:38
called it racist and immoral to lock criminals up.
00:13:42
Brandon, let me ask you something.
00:13:44
Who's the racist here, if you think about it?
00:13:46
Because if you're saying that locking up criminals is racist,
00:13:50
you're basically admitting that you already know which
00:13:52
demographic is committing most of the crime.
00:13:54
You said it, not me. Seriously, people, There is
00:13:57
nothing racist about locking up a murderer.
00:14:00
There's nothing immoral about taking a rapist off the street.
00:14:03
Do you know what's immoral? Letting killers roam free so
00:14:07
that innocent families have to bury their kids.
00:14:09
That is immoral. And just so you don't think I'm
00:14:12
exaggerating, here's a quick receipt.
00:14:14
This one got to me more than most.
00:14:17
This is from a Little League football game in Chicago.
00:14:20
You heard me, Little League kids.
00:14:24
The kids are just out there and trying to play football and
00:14:27
listen to what happens. In Chicago, everybody got to get
00:14:31
down. Everybody got to get down
00:14:33
because they shoot everybody down.
00:14:38
Look, look, the kids are running, they shooting.
00:14:41
We can't have no fun in Chicago, man.
00:14:44
No fun, man. This is terrible.
00:14:50
How to throw a goddamn flag because this y'all neighborhood.
00:14:55
You can hear the sorrow and the truth in his voice.
00:15:00
That's not a statistic. That's not a sound bite.
00:15:02
That's just a normal afternoon in Chicago.
00:15:06
They live this every damn day. Kids can't even play football.
00:15:09
Let's head over to DC is this is what became the test case city.
00:15:13
Trump decided you know what, if these local leaders won't
00:15:17
protect their own citizens, I'll bring in federal help.
00:15:20
Boots on the ground, a reset if you will.
00:15:23
In DC, he had that authority. Of course, the media instantly
00:15:27
branded it as a militarization. Cue the scary graphics, dramatic
00:15:32
music, headlines about Trump sending stormtroopers into the
00:15:35
capital. Everyone panicked.
00:15:37
Oh no, Orange Hitler is invading DC.
00:15:41
But here's the thing. Militarization or not, it
00:15:44
worked. Crime dropped, and fast.
00:15:47
But don't take my word for it. Let's hear from the DC mayor,
00:15:51
Muriel Bowser herself before any of the federal takeover happened
00:15:56
in DC. Go ahead and roll it, boys.
00:15:59
We are American citizens. Our families go to war, we pay
00:16:04
taxes, and we uphold the responsibilities of citizenship.
00:16:09
And while this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I
00:16:14
can't say that given some of the rhetoric of the past that we're
00:16:19
totally surprised. I can say to DC residents that
00:16:25
we will continue to operate our government in a way that makes
00:16:30
you proud. Basically, to her credit, it was
00:16:32
a nice way of saying we're not surprised and they weren't happy
00:16:36
about it. But classic Pearl clutching.
00:16:38
She was upset that Trump would dare bring in federal resources
00:16:42
because technically crime was already down a teeny bit.
00:16:46
She went on to say not fixed, not safe, just down a hair and
00:16:51
she acted like she didn't need any help.
00:16:52
Well, she absolutely did. Once reality walked in, the feds
00:16:57
were deployed. They cracked down and within 20
00:17:00
days, the numbers were undeniable.
00:17:03
Violent crime nose dived, carjackings fell off a Cliff,
00:17:06
and DC residents could finally breathe for a second.
00:17:09
And Mayor Bowser's response? For carjackings, the difference
00:17:13
between this period, this 20 day period of this federal surge and
00:17:19
last year represents a 87% reduction in carjackings in
00:17:27
Washington DC. We know that when carjackings go
00:17:30
down, when the use of gun goes down, when homicide or robbery
00:17:34
go down, neighborhoods feel safer and are safer.
00:17:39
So this surge has been important to us for that reason.
00:17:44
She went on to thank the federal government.
00:17:47
Did you catch it? That's the same mayor now
00:17:50
thinking to the federal government for after carjackings
00:17:53
dropped 87%. Didn't think Trump by name.
00:17:57
Of course, God forbid A lefty show personal gratitude to the
00:18:00
man. But she admitted the results.
00:18:03
And honestly, good for her. That is maturity, That is
00:18:07
honesty, and that is leadership. She swallowed her pride and she
00:18:11
said, yeah, you know what, this worked.
00:18:13
And that right there is what every other mayor in America
00:18:16
should be doing. You don't have to like this guy.
00:18:18
You don't. You don't have to vote for him,
00:18:21
but when something makes your city safer, clearly grow up and
00:18:26
admit it. Bowser did.
00:18:28
Why can't Brandon Johnson, why can't Governor, whatever his
00:18:32
name Pritzker, do the same? Why can't the protesters who are
00:18:36
out there see this New York, Trump's so-called
00:18:41
militarization? It worked, full stop.
00:18:45
And the only reason it's controversial is because the
00:18:47
wrong guy made it happen. I'm going to wrap it up, but
00:18:50
before I do, just when you thought the clown car couldn't
00:18:53
get any fuller, along comes the Internet and Twitter and TikTok
00:18:56
and whatever platform you prefer.
00:18:58
The land of the brain dead hot takes.
00:19:01
Excluding mine, of course. I saw a post from someone
00:19:04
calling themselves the Nihilist Abyss.
00:19:08
Yes, that's the actual name they use.
00:19:10
Because nothing screams credibility like sounding like a
00:19:13
hot topic clearance rack. And here's what she said.
00:19:18
Chicago in here. This isn't fucking funny.
00:19:22
Our president openly is sharing memes of my city in flames with
00:19:26
military helicopters overhead and I'm just supposed to go to
00:19:29
work hoping that our own president doesn't drop a bomb on
00:19:31
me in an American city? What the fuck timeline is this?
00:19:36
I want out of it. I will never forgive anyone
00:19:40
voting for this. Oh my God lady.
00:19:43
This is not Call of Duty. It's not Fallout 5 and Trump
00:19:47
doesn't have a nuclear button labeled Chicago under his desk.
00:19:51
What kind of indoctrination does it take to really believe this
00:19:55
bullshit? These people are so marinated in
00:19:58
their woke echo chambers that they've convinced themselves
00:20:01
that the president is about to send an F16 in to rain fire on
00:20:05
Wrigley Field. But this?
00:20:09
This is why it's impossible to take the left and the opposition
00:20:12
seriously instead of debating real policy.
00:20:16
They're role-playing apocalypse scenarios for social media
00:20:19
likes. What's sad is that people
00:20:21
believe it. They believe Trump is literally
00:20:24
this comic book villain waiting to vaporize their Starbucks.
00:20:28
It's delusional, it's embarrassing, and it's exactly
00:20:32
why nothing ever changes. So I'll leave you with this.
00:20:35
People are screaming and crying for the wrong reasons.
00:20:38
Somebody told you to hate the big bad orange man and you just
00:20:42
did, no questions asked. Open your eyes, look at the
00:20:47
actual results. His so-called militarization in
00:20:51
DC dropped carjackings by 87% like I mentioned, along with all
00:20:56
the other crime statistics. That is lives saved, that is
00:21:03
kids safer on their way to school.
00:21:05
Those are facts. And you wonder why the
00:21:07
opposition is terrified of Trump, because every time he
00:21:11
actually fixes something like this, it exposes how useless the
00:21:15
Democrats have been. It's why they invent scandals
00:21:18
and why they smear and why they lie.
00:21:21
Because winning actual provable success, like I gave you in this
00:21:25
episode, it scares the hell out of them.
00:21:28
And maybe it should. But me, I want crime stopped.
00:21:33
I want the criminals to be the ones who are scared.
00:21:37
I'm tired of walking around every day sizing up the threats,
00:21:40
wondering when I'll have to defend my wife and kids.
00:21:44
Some random psycho just happens to be over there.
00:21:46
I got to be ready. It's not freedom, it's survival
00:21:50
and we don't have to live that way.
00:21:51
This is Stay in the Fray podcast.
00:21:53
If you want safe streets, If you want actual results, then stop
00:21:58
listening to hysterical paid pundits on the Internet and the
00:22:03
cowardly mayors and start demanding real solutions.
00:22:08
The criminals are not scared yet, but they damn well should
00:22:12
be. Like and subscribe, you know you
00:22:14
know what to do all the stuff. Join me here.
00:22:17
In reality, let's push forward together.
00:22:19
So stay strong, stay determined, stay grounded, stay afraid.
00:22:25
Love you guys, all you. Had to do is just listen up.