I am really tired of days like we had yesterday after the shooting in Minnesota. I’m not writing this to ask you for money, I’m just writing to say it doesn’t have to be this way. This is not an issue that we lack knowledge on how to solve. This is an issue that our elected officials lack the courage to address.
That’s why, live on CNN, I looked directly into the camera and reminded Donald Trump that after the Parkland shooting, he called out other elected officials and said they wouldn’t do anything because they were afraid of the NRA and he wasn’t. Then he met with the NRA and did nothing…because he is a coward.
As hard as these days are, I would like to remind you that the biggest obstacle to changing gun laws after Parkland wasn’t if it was actually possible, but that people didn’t think it would be possible. So many people told students after Parkland to give up because there was a Republican trifecta. But we were foolish enough to believe we could make change, so we showed up by the thousands to demand action at our state capital. As a result, we raised the age to buy a gun to 21 and passed a red flag law that has been used thousands of times in Florida. Then in 2022, Congress passed the first federal gun law in 30 years after the Buffalo and Uvalde shootings. Thousands of lives have been saved as a result of these laws, but you aren’t going to hear about the shootings that don’t happen. We have made and continue to make progress, even though it’s never fast enough.
Thank you for supporting Leaders We Deserve. A core part of why we do this is rooted in the fact that while older generations didn’t go through school shooter drills, they did go through nuclear bomb drills and when they grew up they passed the largest arms reduction treaties in human history. I believe progress was made because they knew the anxiety of what it was like to be told by your government the best it can do to hide you from a weapon of mass destruction is to shelter under a desk.
While I have little faith that the current cowards in power will successfully address this, I do have hope in the young people you all have enabled us to support in their elections. I have hope that just maybe one day, a generation going through school shooting drills will be history, not a constant headline.
Thank you,
David Hogg
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