Activism
After the school shooting, Hogg emerged as a leader in the 2018 United States gun violence protests. Along with Alfonso Calderon, Sarah Chadwick, X González, Cameron Kasky, Kyle Kashuv and other students, he turned to the media to talk about their role as survivors in the shooting and voice his opinion on gun control and gun violence. He called on elected officials to pass gun control measures and has been a vocal critic of politicians who take campaign donations from the NRA, and has urged them to compromise on legislation to save lives.
Hogg joined the social media movement and student-led gun control advocacy group Never Again MSD shortly after its formation. He flew to Los Angeles on February 21, 2018, to appear on Dr. Phil, along with his sister, to discuss the shooting. There, they met with survivors of the Columbine High School massacre. Hogg, along with González, blamed the National Rifle Association of America and the politicians to whom they donate as being complicit in school shootings. He declined to go to the White House on February 21 to meet with President Donald Trump, saying that he had to be in Tallahassee, and that Trump could come to Parkland if he wanted to talk.
Hogg criticized the media coverage of the Parkland shooting as well as its aftermath in that Black students were not given a voice by the media; he said that his school was 25% Black but "the way we're covered doesn't reflect that".
In April 2018, Hogg initiated an effort to urge Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to bring a bill to the House of Representatives that required mandatory background checks for gun buyers; on Twitter, Hogg urged people to contact Speaker Ryan and demand a vote on universal background checks. That year, he worked to develop an anti-NRA advocacy group to encourage young people to register and vote in the 2018 midterm elections and elect candidates who promise better gun control legislation.
In May 2018, Hogg and other Never Again MSD students led a "die-in" protest at a Publix supermarket, with a mass of students lying down on the store's floor, as a rebuke of the supermarket's financial support of pro-NRA gubernatorial candidate Adam Putnam; the supermarket had contributed more than $670,000 to Putnam's campaign over three years. In addition, Hogg called on people to boycott Publix until the chain's support of Putnam stopped. As a result of the protest, Publix made a statement suspending support for Putnam.
On February 10, 2021, March for Our Lives announced that Hogg would take a leave of absence "to take some time for himself to reflect and recommit to the mission."
On July 20, 2022, Hogg interrupted a House Judiciary Committee hearing to mark up the 2021 Assault Weapons Ban and the Equal Access for Victims of Gun Violence Act. After Republican Andy Biggs from Arizona said that Americans should be armed in case there was an invasion of the southern border, Hogg shouted: "The shooter at my high school: antisemitic, anti-black and racist. The shooter in El Paso described it as an invasion" (a reference to the 2019 El Paso shooting). As he was being escorted out of the hearing room he added: "Those guns are coming from the United States of America. They aren't coming from Mexico. You are reiterating the points of a mass shooter sir".
