Jason,
Eight years ago today was the worst day of my life.
A 19-year-old who never should have had access to a gun walked into my high school with an AR-15 and took the lives of 17 students and educators, injuring 17 others. Nothing prepares you for the sound of your classmates crying for their friends — or for how that moment stays with you forever.
I've spent the years since trying to make sure no one else has to live with that kind of pain.
I'll be honest: this work is soul-crushing. No one chooses to spend their life reliving the worst day they've ever experienced. People who survive violence don't organize because they want to — we do it because it feels mandatory. Because if we don't fight to stop it from happening again, who will?
For a long time, it felt like we were screaming into the void. "Thoughts and prayers" from leaders who refused to act, while the violence continued.
But here's something that matters — and something I want you to know today:
This work is making a difference.
Despite what you'll often see in the news, gun violence in America has declined substantially from its peak during the COVID era. After historic spikes in 2020 and 2021, national gun homicide and shooting rates have fallen for several consecutive years and are now among the lowest they've been in nearly a decade.
That didn't happen by accident.
It happened because people like you stayed in this fight — and because we started changing who's in government. Leaders like Maxwell Frost, the first Gen Z member of Congress, helped push the Biden administration to create the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, bringing real coordination and accountability to how the federal government responds to gun violence.
The movement to end gun violence is in a far stronger place today than it was eight years ago. And the gun lobby knows it. The NRA is weaker than it's ever been — not because of any one person, but because millions of people refused to give up.
I want to be clear about something:
I do this work to prevent what happened at Parkland from ever happening again.
And part of how we do that is changing who is in government — not just pressuring the same leaders over and over to do the right thing.
You've helped make that possible.
On a day that will always carry a lot of grief, I mainly want to say this: Thank you.
Thank you for standing with me, with other survivors, and with a movement that chose persistence over hopelessness — even when it was hard.
We still have a long way to go. Progress isn't enough, but it is real. And it saves lives.
I carry Parkland with me every day. I always will. And I'm deeply grateful that you've chosen to carry this fight with me. Thank you again for everything you're doing.
David Hogg
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