Anti-gun violence activist David Hogg promoted March for Our Lives at Arcadia University in Glenside.
GLENSIDE, Pa. (WLVT) - On Feb. 4, 2018, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was the site of one of the worst mass shootings in American history. Since then students from that school have gone on to found March for Our Lives, a youth-led movement fighting gun violence. One of those founders was in the Philadelphia area this week to talk about March for Our Lives. We sat down with David Hogg to discuss gun violence.
“There is no age limit to changing the world. And age is no excuse not to be involved, no matter if you’re too young or too old,” Hogg said.
The now 19-year-old helped organize the March for Our Lives protest in March of 2018. Hundreds of thousands of young Americans participated. Now he’s hoping even more will support a new gun control proposal.
“We worked with gun violence prevention researchers across the country over the past several months to put together a comprehensive plan to address gun violence,” he said.
Called “A Peace Plan for a Safer America,” the March for Our Lives group says it could reduce gun deaths by 50 percent, or 200,000 people, over the next 10 years.
Hogg detailed the plan Monday at Arcadia University in Glenside. Students there already know of him. The entire freshman class read Glimmer of Hope, a book written by the March for Our Lives founders.
“I took a lot from the book, actually,” said Arcadia freshman Mackenzie Hillegass. “After I read the book I registered to vote in the state of Pennsylvania.”
“It’s really important for me and my generation because it affects us so deeply,” said Marlie Ford, also a freshman student at Arcadia.
Hogg spoke to the students, who were around his own age—he himself started studying at Harvard University this fall—and encouraged young people to vote.
“Demand the presidential candidates have a comprehensive plan—Donald Trump not excluded—have a comprehensive plan to address gun violence,” Hogg said. “Pennsylvania is in a very unique position to do just that and demand these presidential candidates are good on all these issues.”
Hogg then led a discussion on gun violence prevention, noting the irony that six people were hurt in a Philadelphia shooting this past Sunday.
“I think every day is discouraging, whether there’s a mass shooting that’s on the news or not,” Hogg said. “Arguably the days where there is not a shooting on the news… you know that there are shootings every day that aren’t on the news because they aren’t mass shootings that don’t get any recognition.”
He discussed the Peace Plan, which calls for raising the minimum age to own a gun to 21. It also proposes gun owners have gun licenses that would require training, similar to a driver’s license. Hogg acknowledged these changes will be hard to turn into law, as Republicans and Democrats have struggled to pass a less comprehensive law requiring a universal background check to buy a gun.
“A background check can only do so much. We need a comprehensive system of gun licensing in the United States and we need a system that addresses the injustices that cause gun violence in the first place and make somebody want to pick up a gun,” Hogg said.
Regardless of politics, Americans need to change their view on mass shooters so they don’t glorify these violent acts, according to Hogg. That includes members of the media.
“Even at my school, they said that they were going to be famous as a result of this,” he said. “And they were. There were in the local newspaper. They were all over the media.
“I think the media and journalists have to be much more cautious about the way they tell the stories, especially around mass shootings, and tell those stories in ways that don’t glorify the shooter or make them famous.”
He hopes to instead promote survivors and young people interested in founding March for Our Lives chapters in their hometowns, like Clarissa Morgan, an Arcadia freshman student from Arizona.
“I’d like to talk to talk to my own high school about it,” Morgan said. “I’m hoping to talk to my principal from there about March for Our Lives and to see if he would like to start something up there.”
Glimmer of Hope will help fund those new March for Our Lives chapters. One hundred percent of the proceeds will go to the March for Our Lives Foundation.