Students caught up in Florida shooting call on politicians to act

Students gather during a vigil at Pine Trails Park for the victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Photo / AP

A student had a message for politicians yesterday, the day after he survived a mass shooting that killed 17 people and injured 15 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

"Please, take action. Ideas are great. Ideas are wonderful and they help you get re-elected and everything," David Hogg said on CNN as he looked straight at the camera.

"But what's more important is actual action ... that results in saving thousands of children's lives. Please, take action."

The Valentine's Day massacre is the deadliest public school shooting since 20 first-graders and six staff members were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012. It's also one of the deadliest mass shootings on record.

Hogg said a teacher kept him and several other students safe inside a small classroom. The student journalist then pulled out his camera and interviewed classmates while they were in hiding. A video posted on YouTube shows students being interviewed inside a dimly lit room. "This shouldn't be happening anymore, and ... it doesn't deserve to happen to anyone," a female student said nervously. "No amount of money should make it more easily accessible to get guns."

As the camera went out of focus, another female student began talking. She rallied for gun rights and wanted to be a junior member of the National Rifle Association, she can be heard saying. She said she was planning to go to a gun range for her 18th birthday to learn how to shoot. All of that has changed. "I don't even want to be behind a gun," she said. "I don't want to be the person behind a bullet. I don't want to be the person to point a bullet at someone. And to have the bullet pointed at me, my school, my classmates, my teachers, my mentors. It's definitely eye-opening to the fact that we need more gun control in our country."

School shootings have happened so often in the US that she said people have become inured to the threat.

"I even texted my sisters, 'Shooting at my school. I am safe'," the girl said. "They responded, 'OMG, LOL, you're funny'. Now that's a problem in society, and it's a bigger problem in America."

Asked by CNN on Thursday about what kind of action President Donald Trump and lawmakers need to take, Hogg said that "any action" is better than "complete stagnancy" and political finger-pointing. "We can say, 'Yes, we're going to do all these things. Thoughts and prayers'," Hogg said. "What we need more than that is action."