Statement from March For Our Lives and David Hogg Ahead of Oral Arguments in U.S. v. Rahimi

WASHINGTON, D.C. — While March For Our Lives and hundreds of young people and gun safety advocates rally in front of the United States Supreme Court, David Hogg and representatives from March For Our Lives released the following statements:

“Once again, the Supreme Court has our lives in their hands, and once again we’re calling on them to put the lives of young people and survivors first,” said David Hogg, Co-Founder and board member of March For Our Lives. “Gun laws save lives, and my own family is proof of that. In 2018, we used the law that we won in Florida to disarm someone who sent my mom a death threat. Because of that law, the man was held accountable, and my mom was protected. How many more people have been saved because of laws like that? How many survivors have been saved because their abusers aren’t able to access a gun? The Supreme Court has a moral and constitutional obligation to overturn Rahimi. After the recent shooting in Maine, we know how crucial these laws can be in saving lives. Now is not the time to take away tools that have historically protected us from gun violence.”

“Young people will not stand down while the far right and the gun lobby try to take away our right to live, and we will not stand down while our right, our fundamental right, to live free of gun violence, is threatened,” said Natalie Fall, Executive Director of March For Our Lives. “Let’s be clear: Gun violence is a choice that our leaders are forcing on us. Forcing on young people. Forcing on domestic violence survivors. And it’s a choice now that the Supreme Court has. Young people are inheriting our future now. Not tomorrow, or in the next election, or ten years from now. This is the world we are inheriting. And we are not going to accept a world where the gun lobby has more rights than we do.”

“The irony should not be lost on us that while the survivors of the most horrific instances of violence bravely tell their stories outside today, arbitrary legal doctrines are being debated inside the cushioned seats of the Justices’ chambers,” said Makennan McBryde, Legal Associate at March For Our Lives and co-author of the amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court. “We are standing here together today to show them just what is at stake in their decision. We are the faces of people who know all too well the dangers of allowing firearms into the hands of domestic violence abusers and the voice for those we have lost who cannot tell that story for themselves. Today and every day, the Court cannot ignore that.”

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