Student Gun Activist David Hogg Visits St. Louis

ST. LOUIS, MO — Student activist David Hogg, who survived the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, last Valentine's Day, was in St. Louis over the weekend to discuss gun violence and call for stricter gun legislation.

Hogg and others emphasized the power of the ballot box in creating change around gun policy during a panel discussion at Cardinal Ritter College Prep High School.

“I want you guys to realize that the only way we’re going to be able to create positive, effective change for the future, the future of this nation, the future of our children, and this epidemic of poverty, and this disease of violence in our country, is by one thing. Your vote," he told the audience.

Students around the St. Louis area have staged multiple walkouts at their schools in recent months to protest state and federal gun policy. At Clayton High School, that included holding a voter registration drive during their lunch period, as well as writing letters and creating videos to get the students' message out.

That message included calling on Washington to lift a ban on federally-funded gun research and challenging Missouri's lax gun laws, which the students say make it harder to buy a boat or get a driver's license than obtain a weapon.

Federal law requires licensed firearms dealers in all states to initiate background checks prior the sale of a gun, but such laws do not apply to private sales and are often inadequate, critics say. Missouri, for example, does not require state-level background checks or serve as a point of contact in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Instead all state firearms transfers are processed through the FBI's national database, which is often not up-to-date.

Further, Missouri repealed a law in 2007 that allowed for longer, more comprehensive background checks. Cassandra Kercher Crifasi, a researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, said the repeal led to a spike in murders and 70 percent more guns making their way to criminals across the state.

Hogg encouraged more protests and activism by students and others, including holding die-ins on campus and at the state capitol.

More than 30,000 Americans are killed by guns every year and twice that number are injured, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 13,000 are murdered. The rest take their own lives or are victims of accidents. Almost half are children or young adults. To put that into perspective, there are 58,318 names etched into the Vietnam War Memorial Wall, for a conflict that lasted nearly 20 years.

The vast majority of shootings aren't covered anywhere as extensively as the Parkland Shooting.

"We only talk about gun control when Sandy Hooks or Columbines happen," activist and former gang member Charles Mayo said at a Washington University panel discussion last year. "But, we have mass shootings every day in our communities."

Last year St. Louis cracked its 25-year murder record. Per capita, the city ranks third for homicides in the United States and first for non-fatal shootings, according to data from the FBI and Major Cities Chiefs Association.

Photo by J. Ryne Danielson/Patch