Fla. shooting survivors focus on midterm vote

PARKLAND, Fla. — New Jersey, Colorado, Los Angeles, Raleigh-durham — the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students reel off their upcoming travel schedule at a dizzying pace. This is their new life, traveling the country advocating for gun control, all while trying to keep up with their studies about two months after 17 people were killed in a shooting at their school.

“I’ve been invited to synagogues and churches and colleges and high school walkouts, and it’s so much, and I wish I could go to everything,” said junior Jaclyn Corin, who is part of the core group of “Never Again MSD.” “It’s the best problem in the world where everybody wants to help us and wants to include us.”

Almost overnight, Corin became one of the leaders in a huge organization that is looking to build on a grassroots movement. The students’ mantra is “vote them out” — a message that applies to any lawmaker who accepts support from the National Rifle Association or declines to talk with them about gun rights. They’re inviting lawmakers to town halls, with more than 200 scheduled around the country.

They are also trying to register as many teenagers as they can before November’s midterm elections.

“Nothing we did on March 24 is going to mean anything if no one goes out to vote in November because that, at the end of the day, that’s where our voices are going to be heard,” said Alex Wind, a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas.

Classmate David Hogg is crisscrossing the country visiting Iowa, Tennessee and possibly Missouri.

“I’m going to different congressional districts, specifically ones where there is a politician, either Democrat or a Republican, that is supported by the NRA … I’m also going to a lot of these places where the politicians have called us out,” he said.

Several students will head to New York at the end of the month to be honored at a Time magazine event after they were on the cover last month.

Chris Grady and a few others will speak at an event in Colorado on the anniversary of the Columbine school shooting.