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Parkland students to tour for voter drive, gun laws

 
Published June 4, 2018

The March For Our Lives organizers from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland are taking their advocacy on the road this summer in two tours to register young voters and promote gun law changes.

The two-month tours announced Monday morning at the Parkland Amphitheater with about two dozen students in attendance will be called "March for Our Lives: Road to Change."

The tour will launch June 15 in Chicago.

About 20 students will be split into a Florida tour (which stops in every congressional district) and a U.S. tour that visits about 20 states. Some kids will have blackout dates and some will be on both tours.

David Hogg — a graduating senior turned gun-control activist since the Feb. 14 shooting at Stoneman Douglas that killed 17 and injured 17 more — says he wants to promote behavioral health intervention and talk with NRA supporters and gun owners about "how these issues affect them and how we can effect change."

Student activist Jaclyn Corin says their movement is a nonpartisan organization that will not endorse any candidate. Just ideas and policies and "morally just leaders."

"We're just trying to save lives here," she added.

When the Miami Herald asked for some clues to the big announcement on Sunday, Hogg directed questions to a marketing and communications firm, Precision Strategies.

A spokesperson told the Herald in an emailed statement that student leaders would "announce the next phase of their movement."

"As part of the next phase, the students will be harnessing the enormous energy and passion against gun violence displayed by the millions of people at the 800 March For Our Lives events across the country on March 24 and turning it into action," the email said.