Hogg siblings call for action on guns

“When it happened to us, we woke up.”

“We knew we couldn’t wait until we got out of college and settled into jobs. We had to make the world a better place now. It was literally a matter of life and death.”

Lauren and David Hogg, siblings and survivors of the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, have published their first-person accounts of how growing up in and surviving the school-shooting generation led them to activism and gun-control advocacy.

“#NEVERAGAIN A New Generation Draws the Line” is their true story of tragedy, trauma, taking action and fusing together a movement that vows #NeverAgain.

The 165-page pocket-book, published by Random House, goes on sale June 19.

The book captures how as a brother and sister struggle to cope, together they discover, each in their own way, that “action is therapeutic.”

Four good friends of Lauren Hogg, a freshman, were among the 17 killed on Valentine’s Day.

In the aftermath of the shooting she was blinded by grief, unable to do anything other than sob or sleep. Meanwhile, her brother, a senior, was recording and documenting the horrific event, giving bold media interviews and discovering that “with a camera or a story, I could change things.”

But it is not just a personal recounting of a life-changing catastrophe. It is also a call to action, providing a 10-point strategy for gun reform and a plea to register and vote.

And finally, it’s a vow to #NeverForget the many lives lost to gun violence at schools and colleges since the Columbine school shooting in 1999.

The Hoggs will donate their proceeds to charity and community organizations. The publisher will make a donation to Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit organization founded in 2014.

tealanez@sun-sentinel.com, 954-356-4542 or Twitter @talanez