Parkland students criticized President Donald Trump for backing down from tougher gun control proposals and catering to the National Rifle Association in an interview with CNN on Monday.
David Hogg and Alfonso Calderon, who both survived the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in which 17 people were murdered last month, said the White House proposal for gun control and school safety falls short.
Hogg said that while Trump had originally showed "bipartisanship and that he wanted to work together on this and save some lives" when he earlier said that he wanted to raise the age to 21 for legally buying a weapon, the president's backtracking on the issue afterwards when confronted by the NRA showed "that he is no better than other politicians."
He urged Trump to "Show us you're better than the other politicians," emphasizing that " The proposals are great, [but] proposals without action remain proposals."
Hogg was especially upset by the NRA's claim that having a higher age limit than 18 on those allowed to buy an assault weapon would not have stopped any of the high-profile mass shootings in recent years.
"My response to that is Nick Cruz was 19 and bought his assault rifle," he said. "It's offensive that they say that, because this would have stopped him, because he legally would not have been able to get this gun, but he was able to. That is part of the reason we had the massacre occur at our school."
Hogg added that the main priority of the NRA is not to protect the Second Amendment. "What they are really trying to do," he insisted, "is let us sell you more guns at an even younger age, put more people at risk, scare more people, cause more violence, kill more people, and sell more guns."
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.