David Hogg (activist)

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David Miles Hogg (born April 12, 2000) is an American author and student who survived the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on February 14, 2018, and afterward became a gun control advocate and an activist against gun violence in the United States. He is one of twenty founding members of Never Again MSD, a gun control advocacy group led by Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSD) students. In conjunction with his gun control advocacy, he has helped lead several high-profile protests, marches, and boycotts. He has also been a target of several conspiracy theories and verbal attacks.

With his sister, he wrote a book titled #NeverAgain: A New Generation Draws the Line that made the New York Times bestseller list. They say that they will donate all income from it to charity.

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Early life and education

Hogg is originally from Los Angeles, California. He moved to Florida at the beginning of high school. He is the son of Kevin Hogg, a former agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Rebecca Boldrick, a teacher for Broward County Public Schools in Broward County, Florida.

Hogg chose to attend Stoneman Douglas High School because of the television production classes it offered. He is a Teenlink reporter for the Sun Sentinel. He graduated on June 3, 2018 from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Hogg has been accepted to several universities including the University of California, Irvine, but has not yet decided which university he will attend. He plans to take a year off before starting college to work on the 2018 mid-term elections.

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Stoneman Douglas High School shooting

While a senior at Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Florida, Hogg was on campus when the shooter, Nikolas Cruz, a 19-year-old former student at the high school, started shooting with a semi-automatic rifle after pulling the fire alarm. Hogg, who was in his AP environmental science class, told the teacher that the repeated "pop" sounds the class heard sounded like gunshots. Hogg and other students made an attempt to exit the building, but a janitor instructed the students to go back into the classroom. Hogg credits the janitor for saving them, as the group of students were unintentionally heading towards the shooter. A culinary arts teacher pulled Hogg and others inside her classroom and they hid in a closet.

Hogg checked social media and discovered that the shooting was occurring at his high school in real time. He used his cell phone to record the scene and to interview the other students hiding in the closet, to leave a record in the event that they did not survive the shooting. Hogg's sister, who is a freshman at the high school, corresponded with her brother via text message while the shooting was taking place. After about an hour, SWAT team police officers came into the classroom and escorted them out. Hogg reunited with his sister and father later that day.

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Gun control advocacy

After the school shooting, Hogg emerged as a leader in the 2018 United States gun violence protests. Along with Alfonso Calderon, Sarah Chadwick, Emma González, Cameron Kasky and other students, he turned to the media to talk about their role as survivors in the shooting and voice his opinion on gun control and gun violence. He has called on elected officials to pass gun control measures and has been a vocal critic of officials who take donations from the NRA, and he has been urging them to compromise on legislation in order to save lives.

Hogg joined the social media movement and student-led gun control advocacy group Never Again MSD shortly after its formation. Hogg flew to Los Angeles on February 21, 2018, to be on The Dr. Phil Show with Phil McGraw, along with his sister, to discuss the shooting and suspected shooter. There, they met with survivors of the Columbine High School massacre. Hogg, along with fellow activist Emma González, blamed the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the politicians to whom they donate as being complicit in school shootings. He declined to go to the White House on February 21 to meet with President Donald Trump, saying that he had to be in Tallahassee, and that Trump could come to Parkland if he wanted to talk.

When Republican candidate Leslie Gibson, who was running unopposed for the Maine House of Representatives, described fellow Parkland student Emma González as a "skinhead lesbian", and also insulted Hogg as a "bald-faced liar", Hogg called for somebody to challenge the Republican; Eryn Gilchrist, who was "horrified and embarrassed" by Gibson's comment, decided to run as a Democrat to challenge Gibson for the position; as did Republican former State Senator Thomas Martin, Jr., who said Gibson's remarks did not represent the Maine Republican Party, and that he planned to contact the survivors to commend their courage. Gibson dropped out of the race in response to public reaction critical of his comments.

Hogg was featured on the cover of an April 2018 edition of Time, along with fellow activists Jaclyn Corin, Emma Gonzalez, Cameron Kasky and Alex Wind.

Hogg states that he is a supporter of the Second Amendment and supports NRA members' right to own guns legally, saying, "We're calling out the NRA a lot and 99.9 percent of the people that are in the NRA are responsible, safe gun owners and I respect them for that, joining an organization that wants to support safe gun ownership is excellent."

In an interview with Fox News, Hogg said he was for reasonable gun control such as regulations that prohibit those suffering from mental illnesses from acquiring guns. Asked what new legislation he wants to see, Hogg replied: "Raising the federal age of gun ownership and possession to the age of 21; banning all bump stocks; making sure that we have universal background checks; making sure that people that have committed acts of domestic violence are no longer able to get a gun, which in Florida, it's harder, it's just not impossible, fully, yet; and making sure that people with a criminal history and a history of mental illness are not able to obtain these weapons of mass destruction."

Hogg criticized the media coverage of the Parkland shooting as well as its aftermath in that black students were not given a voice by the media; he said that his school was 25% black but "the way we're covered doesn't reflect that."

In April 2018, Hogg initiated an effort to urge Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to bring a bill to the House of Representatives which required mandatory background checks for gun buyers; on Twitter, Hogg is urging people to contact speaker Ryan and demand a vote on universal background checks.

Hogg is working to develop an anti-NRA advocacy group to encourage young people to register and vote in the 2018 midterm elections and elect candidates who promise better gun control legislation.

In May 2018, Hogg and other Never Again MSD students led a "die-in" protest at a Publix supermarket, with a mass of students lying down on the store's floor, as a rebuke of the supermarket's financial support of pro-NRA gubernatorial candidate Adam Putnam; the supermarket had contributed more than $670,000 to Putnam's campaign over three years. In addition, Hogg called on people to boycott Publix until the chain's support of Putnam was stopped. As a result of the protest, Publix made a statement suspending support for Putnam.

Boycotts

Hogg called for students to boycott spring break in Florida and instead travel to Puerto Rico if gun control legislation was not passed by the Florida state government. Having finished high school, Hogg is taking a gap year to campaign for politicians in favor of gun reform in the midterm elections.

Hogg initiated a boycott of companies who advertise during The Ingraham Angle. Hogg called for the boycott after the television host Laura Ingraham attacked him in a Tweet about his college application, which Hogg characterized as cyberbullying. In response to the boycott, 24 advertisers left the show. Following the loss of advertisers, Ingraham apologized. Hogg dismissed the apology as insincere. The boycott drew mixed reactions. Ingraham was supported by Ted Nugent, Bill Maher and by Russian bots on Twitter. Fox News continued to support Ingraham. Public polling showed that public perception of Fox News declined more than that of any advertiser. Simultaneously, Ingraham's viewership increased in the weeks following the boycott. Before, her viewership averaged 2.5 million. It jumped to 3 million when she returned after the boycott.

In a similar episode, Hogg was threatened by a Sinclair Broadcast Group TV host Jamie Allman, from station KDNL in St. Louis, who wrote a vulgar tweet threatening to insert a hot poker in his anus. Following a boycott of advertisers on The Allman Report, Allman resigned and his show was canceled.

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Conspiracy theories and harassment

Shortly after the shooting, false claims appeared on social media that it had never really happened, and others accused Hogg and other students of being "crisis actors." After a series of televised interviews following the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, far-right figures and conspiracy theorists attacked Hogg in online media. Hogg's family have received death threats from various conspiracy theorists, according to his mother. Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram reported removing posts that attack the students or accuse them of being actors.

On the morning of June 5, 2018, Broward County Sheriff's Office received a false report from an anonymous caller claiming that there was a hostage situation in Hogg's family home. The harassment tactic known as swatting was described by Hogg, several media organizations, and the sheriff's department as a prank.