David Hogg, the Parkland, Fla., shooting survivor who has become an outspoken gun control activist, says he’s running for Congress when he’s 25.
The 18-year-old told New York Magazine in an interview published Monday that he already has plans to run as soon as he is eligible to be a congressman.
“I think I’ve come to that conclusion,” he said. “I want to be at least part of the change in Congress.”
Hogg rose to prominence after the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He hid in a dark classroom and recorded his friends’ testimonies as a gunman killed 17 people.
The teenager became an unofficial spokesperson for his fellow classmates, making several television appearances in the days after the shooting.
Hogg and fellow student Emma Gonzalez became such prominent voices of the gun control movement that Infowars, Breitbart and other far-right media sites began pushing conspiracy theories and comparing them to Adolf Hitler.
Parkland students organized the “March for Our Lives” rally in March that attracted thousands of anti-gun violence protests to Washington, D.C.
March for Our Lives then launched a nationwide get-out-the-vote 59-day summer bus tour.
“The amount of suffering I’ve seen is beyond belief,” Hogg said. “The amount of inequality is beyond belief.”
Hogg, who graduated this spring, announced in April that he would not immediately start college but would take a gap year to work on the midterm elections.
It is part of his seven-year-plan, Hogg told New York.
He says he’ll go to college in the fall of 2019, “read a shitload of books,” and then take time off again to work on the 2020 presidential campaigns.
