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David Hogg, a 22-year-old gun control activist and Parkland mass shooting survivor was escorted out of a House Judiciary Committee meeting on banning assault rifles.
As per the New York Post, David Hogg interrupted the meeting by shouting over several speakers in response to a lawmaker claiming that assault rifles should not be banned. The lawmaker in question expressed his belief that assault rifles could be used to protect the US from Mexico and other threats.
David Hogg alleged that this sort of rhetoric was xenophobic and reminiscent of the manifestos written by several school shooters.
He said:
“You’re reiterating the points of mass shooters in their manifestos. The shooter in my high school: anti-Semitic, anti-black and racist.”
Hogg continued to shout at lawmakers as he was removed from the building.
How did David Hogg survive the Parkland massacre?
On February 14, 2018, David Hogg, aged 18, survived a mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
The alleged gunman, 19-year-old former Stoneman Douglas High student Nikolas Cruz, entered the school premises armed with a semi-automatic rifle, which he then used to attack students and staff. The shooting led to 17 deaths, and 17 more were left injured.
According to CNN, David Hogg and a few other students hid from the shooter in a cramped closet. During the shooting itself, he proceeded to record his experiences in real-time, interviewing other students and trying to relay what they were going through. A SWAT team rescued his sister Lauren Hogg, a student at the school, and him.
As a student journalist and aspiring reporter, David Hogg later told reporters that he saw an opportunity to explore the phenomena of school shootings firsthand.
In an interview with CNN, he said:
"That's kind of around the same time that I just had to pull out my phone."
He carried out the interviews in a cramped area, using his phone to record them while in a cramped closet with other hiding students.
He said:
"It was sheer terror."I want to show these people exactly what's going on when these children are facing bullets flying through classrooms and students are dying trying to get an education."
He continued:
"That's not OK, and that's not acceptable and we need to fix that."
David Hogg also texted with his sister Lauren throughout the experience. He would later tell outlets he was fortunate to escape physically unscathed, but the traumatic ordeal pushed him towards fighting for stricter gun control laws to curb the skyrocketing rates of mass shootings in America.
David Hogg turns to activism
In the aftermath of the massacre, David Hogg and other Parkland survivors such as Alfonso Calderon, Sarah Chadwick, and X Gonzalez became prominent faces of the 2018 gun control protests. Officials identified him as a significant figure in pro-gun control organizations such as Never Again MSD and March for Our Lives.
Hogg was recognized for his outspoken nature as he condemned politicians and public officials who received donations from the National Rifle Association, an organization seen as a major obstacle to the reform of gun laws in the nation.
Hogg did clarify, however, that he does not want to ban guns entirely. In a 2018 TV interview with Fox News, he stated that his main priority is to bolster safety measures such as background checks.
He said:
"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 the interview, he also summarized his perspective on how gun laws should change.
He said:
"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."
He continued:
"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."
In 2018, Hogg stated that when he was eligible to become a member of the United States House of Representatives at age 25, he would run for candidacy.
