The Big Q&A With David Hogg

Parkland shooting survivor and gun safety activist David Hogg answers questions from George and Team Takei.

David Hogg speaks during March for Our Lives 2022 on June 11, 2022 in Washington, DC. Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for March For Our Lives.

Today, it is my privilege to interview gun safety activist David Hogg as a guest on the Big Q&A. A survivor of the Parkland shooting, David has turned his experience into activism, not just founding March For Our Lives, but now launching a new PAC devoted to inspiring the next generation to run for office.

As I have often said, it will be the young people who save us, whether it’s our democracy or literally our lives. On both of these fronts, David is leading the way and I can’t wait to share his perspective with all of you. — George Takei

As a survivor of the Parkland shooting, that has clearly informed your activism and the direction of your life and career. Can you speak a bit about how that experience has formed your politics and worldview?

My classmates and I rallied after Parkland, saying, “Never again.” We said that over and over. It was our slogan in those early days after the shooting. In the year after the shooting, more than 25 states enacted tougher laws on firearms. But many did not, and Republicans in Congress shamefully blocked all efforts at reform. Thousands of shootings have happened since.

Over the past five years, I’ve learned a lot of practical lessons, and I’ve also studied the history of political movements. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that moral clarity must be combined with political power — and the skill to use it. That’s why I’m deeply encouraged by the voting power that my generation has shown in 2020 and 2022. We voted at the highest rates in history in those elections, exceeding any generation before us. It has surprised so many jaded pundits and politicians, but Gen Z’s political engagement isn’t an accident. 

It’s the logical outcome of a generation that was taught to “run, hide, and fight” in active shooter drills for our entire lives. Now, we are going another step further. We’re transforming our classroom instruction to “run” into a call to run for office. One of the victories that makes me most optimistic for the future of our politics is Congressman Maxwell Frost’s victory last November in Orlando. 

The former national organizing director of March For Our Lives, Maxwell overcame 10 primary challengers including two former members of Congress to become the first Gen Z ever elected to Congress, and he’s carrying a clear message from our generation into the halls of power. 

Now, I’m on a mission through my new organization, Leaders We Deserve, to find and support the next Maxwell Frost, the next Justin Pearson, and the next Zooey Zephyr. Young people aren’t just voting in record numbers, we are running for office and winning. We are building our political power, and developing the skill so that when the time comes we will be able to make the change our nation needs.

I also spent much of my life’s work around the idea of “Never Again.” It is a powerful rallying cry, indeed. There is an intensity to the way young people are engaging on the issue of gun safety that gives me hope that they may just make a real difference this time. What are you seeing as someone who is leading in this fight? 

When your life has been threatened — not just once, but every single day by the lack of action on gun violence from our nation’s leaders — engaging is just the rational response for my generation. We are the school shooting generation, raised with the threat of massacre hanging over us. And because we’re connected like no other generation before us, when one school is under attack, we all know about it.

When my classmates and I started organizing after the massacre at Parkland, I think a lot of people expected us to fail, frankly. They told us that we were young and idealistic, but that nothing could ever change. We have proven them wrong, over and over again. We have made good progress. Not all the progress we need, but in politics progress is so valuable, because it can lead to bigger and bigger outcomes. 

In 2022, we passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and President Biden signed it into law. It won’t stop all gun violence, but it’s a start. And maybe the most significant thing about the law is that it was opposed by the NRA — and yet it still passed with 10 Republican votes. Of course, George, you are no stranger to activism and these kinds of fights. You’ve been a leader and an ally for years, and I’m grateful to you for it.

What lessons can students around the country take from the incredible activism we've seen in Tennessee and now North Carolina more recently?

These moments of activism are creating momentum for change that is going to become unstoppable. When Tennessee’s Republican legislators — who answer only to tiny partisan minorities in their safely gerrymandered districts — voted to expel Reps. Justin Pearson and Justin Jones for protesting in the state house, they had no idea what they were waking up. 

I also don’t want to lose sight of what Justin Pearson, Justin Jones, and Gloria Johnson were protesting for, what actually enraged Republicans so much. Just days before, a massacre at a small Christian school in Nashville left three children and three adults dead. Thousands of Tennesseans, most of them young people, poured into the Capitol Building to demand their leaders pass legislation to protect their lives. The unforgivable offense that Justin Pearson, Justin Jones, and Gloria Johnson perpetrated was to speak out along with these young activists.

You recently launched the Leaders We Deserve PAC. I love that you are encouraging young people not only to vote, but to run for office. Can you talk about the response you're getting from young folks? 

This is a new and important step for our generation — we aren't just voting in record numbers, we are also running for office and winning. As a generation, we grew up hearing that to survive a school shooting, we had to run, hide and fight. As a generation, we now need to reinterpret what that means at a broader scale and that we need to run for office.

Leaders We Deserve will be supporting candidates that represent our generation, not just demographically, but also ideologically. We support candidates who share our generation's belief that we need to ensure that we stop school shootings and protect kids and not the special interests of the NRA; who believe that we need to protect our planet and not the profits of the oil and gas industry; who believe it's time for our leaders to stop evading responsibility and boldly face the challenges of the future.

Most of our work is at the state legislative level, to help turn the tide against the tsunami of far-right activism that we've seen across the country at the state level. For decades, state politics have lacked investment and coordination, and that creates systemic barriers for young people to enter politics. We are breaking down those barriers. We're looking for the inspiring young people who are interested in running for office, and supplying them with the resources and coaching they need. We're filling the gap that often stops young candidates from succeeding.

Clearly national progress on gun safety legislation is slow going, are you seeing any movement at the state level that might give us hope? Do you see that as a more effective path to progress?

I would like to challenge the notion a bit that we can't make progress at the national level. It's vitally important that we keep pressure on Congress and on the Administration to continue to address gun violence in this country. The passage last year of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act proves that we can make progress at the highest levels of our government.

Now, progress has moved differently at the state level. More than half of states have enacted new gun violence prevention measures making communities safer, such as background checks and protection orders that disarm people who are a danger to themselves or others. And there's more to be done. At March For Our Lives, we have supported legislation that regulates supply as much as possible and works to reduce the demand through public awareness campaigns – such as what was done with tobacco We've also seen some disappointing backsliding in other states.

For example, in my home state of Florida the gerrymandered state legislature voted to allow anyone over 21 to carry a concealed weapon without any training or permitting at all. As activists have put pressure on political leaders, and as my generation has proven our voting power at the ballot box in 2020 and 2022, state leaders across the country have definitely responded. But politics is downstream from culture, and we will need to see cultural change before some states change their gun laws to save lives.

The White House just announced it is establishing a brand new Office of Gun Violence Prevention. This speaks to the commitment of this president to working to keep us safe even as Republicans refuse to act. But it also is such a vindication of all the work you have done, as I know you've fought for federal action like this for years. Can you speak a bit about how you've been pushing the White House to take action like this and what you hope to come out of this new office?

I’m so excited that President Biden is taking action and listening to March For Our Lives and our calls to action. March For Our Lives has been calling for this since 2019. We held a town hall in which we asked presidential candidates about creating an Office of Gun Violence Prevention. 

For four years, we’ve registered thousands of young people to vote, we’ve demanded action and protested at the White House calling for this office for four years, and it is finally happening. This happened because young people made their voices heard and voted. And this is also due to amazing activists and survivors, such as my Parkland classmate X Gonzalez and Po Murray of the Newtown Action Alliance, people who have been on the front lines of this work for a long time. Now, in 2024 we have to vote again. We have to keep the work up.