One of the most outspoken survivors from the Parkland, Florida shooting last month, David Hogg, appeared on ABC News to discuss March for Our Lives, calling the protest an event that would “start a revolution.”
With an integral role in organizing the historic march in the nation’s capital, Hogg was interviewed on Good Morning America prior to the march beginning in the studio’s Washington D.C. bureau.
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Weekend anchor Dan Harris began by showing Hogg the results of a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, where 57% of respondents said that the United States’ epidemic of mass shootings results from inadequate mental health care, while 28% said that it had more to do with insufficient gun control laws.
“In light of that, what specifically are you hoping to achieve today?” Harris asked.
“Today we are going to start a revolution,” Hogg said, unfazed by the numbers. “This is the beginning of a lifelong marathon, not only for me, but for my generation. We are sick and tired of the inaction, here in Washington and around the country in different state capitals and different cities, of politicians who are owned by the NRA and not listening to their constituents and the future of America. We are the children.”
“We are making our voices heard, and we will change America, with our without these politicians,” Hogg went on. “Today is the beginning of that revolution.”
Hogg, who has been on the news quite often since the tragedy at his high school, has articulated his feelings on gun laws many times, noting he supports the Second Amendment, and only wants to make it impossible for a school shooting to occur.
In addition to the tragedy he and his community suffered, he was targeted by conspiracy theories after the shooting, claiming that he was an actor pretending to be a victim to push an anti-gun agenda. This theory circulated widely online, including an endorsement by Donald Trump Jr., and it led to vicious personal attacks on Hogg.
Hogg was asked about the march’s slogan “Never Again,” and how he felt earlier this week when two students were killed in a shooting at Great Mills High School in Maryland.
“I had to relive a lot of the previous memories I had of my school shooting. Everybody takes grief their own way, but for me it was more infuriating… Because, that was a person with a gun, and, in reality, were they taken out by law enforcement? Yes, and I’m so glad that they were, but they shouldn’t have had to do that in the first place.”
“It’s due to a lack of in-training, a mental health care problem, a gun control problem, and an American problem, is what we have here” Hogg finished.
The March For Our Lives is expected to total about half a million participants nationwide, in hundreds of cities across the country. In Washington D.C., protesters are already gathering for the event, which begins at noon.
