Cameron Kasky | |
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![]() Kasky speaking at a rally in 2018 | |
Born | Cameron Marley Kasky [1] November 11, 2000 [2] Hollywood, Florida, U.S. |
Education | Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School |
Occupations |
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Years active | 2018–present |
Organization | Never Again MSD |
Known for | Gun control advocacy |
Cameron Marley Kasky [1] (born November 11, 2000) is an American activist and advocate against gun violence who co-founded the student-led gun violence prevention advocacy group Never Again MSD. He is notable for helping to organize the March for Our Lives nationwide student protest in March 2018. Kasky is a survivor of the February 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. [4] Kasky was included in Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People of 2018". [5]
Kasky was a student, a "theatre kid", and former member of the drama club at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, and was a junior at the time of the school shooting in February 2018. [6] [7] [8] He has a younger brother with autism who is also a survivor of the MSD shooting. [9] After graduating from high school, he attended Columbia University for several semesters, but dropped out. [10]
Kasky had just left drama class when the shooting began at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018. [11] After he met his younger brother at a different classroom and exiting the school, the fire alarm sounded. With other students, they were instructed to go back inside. They waited an hour in a classroom until they were rescued. [7]
After the shooting, Kasky brought several school friends to his house and with them founded Never Again MSD (#NeverAgain), a student-led gun control advocacy group. [12] Kasky came up with the name "Never Again" while the group stayed up through the night to make plans, and he posted "Stay alert. #NeverAgain" to Facebook. [6] [13] [14] The group works to create a national movement against gun violence, including an effort to publicize legislators receiving money from the NRA and persuading people not to vote for them. It promoted and led a massive rally called March for Our Lives in Washington, DC, on March 24, 2018. [15]
According to a report in The New Yorker , it was Kasky's idea to found the activist group along with fellow students David Hogg, X González, Sarah Chadwick and others – a group described by reporter Michael Schulman as having "moral clarity and vision" in the gun control debate. [12] Kasky wrote an op-ed on the CNN website describing the events of the massacre and his reaction to it. [7] In an interview, Kasky told the CNN anchor Anderson Cooper that "my generation won't stand for this." [7] Although known as a "theatre kid" with a reputation for being the class clown, [6] Kasky's experience after the shooting was primarily one of anger: [16]
Can't sleep. Thinking about so many things. So angry that I'm not scared or nervous anymore ... I'm just angry. I just want people to understand what happened and understand that doing nothing will lead to nothing. Who'd have thought that concept was so difficult to grasp? [6]
At a televised "Stand Up" town hall session sponsored by CNN with Senator Marco Rubio, Kasky asked the senator whether he would continue receiving money from the National Rifle Association (NRA): "Can you tell me right now that you will not accept a single donation from the NRA?" [17] [18] Rubio responded by saying, "I will always accept the help of anyone who agrees with my agenda." [17] Kasky repeatedly questioned Rubio about whether he would continue receiving NRA money. The senator did not offer a definitive response but appeared to soften his positions regarding some gun restrictions. [19]
Kasky temporarily stopped utilizing Facebook as a result of death threats. [17] When later Kasky was accused of being a crisis actor, he replied to CNN's Wolf Blitzer that "if you had seen me in our school's production of 'Fiddler on the Roof,' you would know that nobody would pay me to act for anything." [20]
Kasky announced the March for Our Lives rally on February 18, 2018. [21] Later that week, Kasky appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show with X González and Jaclyn Corin to discuss their advocacy and march. [22] Kasky said, "The thing that inspired us to create the march was people saying, 'This is not the time to talk about gun control, this is the time to mourn.' We understand that, so here's the time to talk about gun control. March 24th." [23]
In March 2018, he appeared on the cover of Time magazine along with fellow activists Jaclyn Corin, X Gonzalez, David Hogg, and Alex Wind. [24]
Kasky called President Donald Trump a "professional liar" on CNN after Trump delivered a pro-gun speech at the annual NRA convention in Dallas in May 2018, in contrast to Trump's prior call for gun control reform in the wake of the Parkland shooting. Kasky criticized the president to point out Trump said what he needed to say to appease the NRA. [25] [26] [27]
In May 2018, Kasky's father registered a super PAC, Families vs Assault Rifles PAC (FAMSVARPAC), with intentions of going "up against NRA candidates in every meaningful race in the country". [28] [29] [30]
In March 2018, the Florida Legislature passed a bill titled the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act. It raises the minimum age for buying firearms to 21, establishes waiting periods and background checks, provides a program for the arming of some teachers and the hiring of school police, bans bump stocks, and bars potentially violent or mentally unhealthy people arrested under certain laws from possessing guns. In all, it allocates roughly $400 million. [31] The governor signed the bill into law on March 9. He commented, "To the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, you made your voices heard. You didn't let up and you fought until there was change." [32]
On September 19, 2018, Kasky announced his decision to leave March for Our Lives in an interview with Fox News Radio. [33] He expressed regret for some of his past actions, including confronting Rubio at the "Stand Up" town hall session and saying the name of the Parkland shooter aloud in his question to Rubio. [33] However, Kasky said his decision to leave March for Our Lives was not due to a change of heart or political views. [34] Instead, he wants to take responsibility for his actions and encourages others to seek mental health services when necessary. [34] Moving past March for Our Lives, Kasky is working on improving himself personally and a new podcast, "Cameron Knows Nothing". [33] However, in an interview with Insider in 2022, Kasky has revealed the reason why he left March For Our Lives was because of his ongoing struggle with his mental health which further took a toll on him during the time he was part of the organization. [35]
In The New Yorker , journalist Evan Osnos singled out Kasky's direct questioning of Marco Rubio at the CNN town hall as significant and as something no journalist had ever been able to do. [36] People magazine stated that as founder of the #NeverAgain movement, and despite death threats from NRA supporters, "Kasky has committed himself to advancing legislative changes that will make it more difficult for people to get guns, and in the process, has helped inspire advocacy around the cause". [37]
Kasky endorsed Andrew Yang in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, claiming to be "very tired of... the same nonsense that's been failing the American people for generations. Yang is offering up solutions that change the game." [38] Upon Yang dropping out, Kasky threw his support behind Bernie Sanders, and subsequently endorsed Joe Biden in the general election. [39]
Kasky is Jewish, [40] and he identifies as queer. [41] [42] [43] In his coming out as queer, reported by Out on September 14, 2021, Kasky said that his "ability to proudly share who I am today only exists due to queer activists, specifically queer activists of color, giving their lives for our right to exist...To those of you who are also struggling to find an identity that you find authentic, take your time. Look inwards and indulge in your beauty and light." [42] Kasky has been open about his struggles with mental health over the years (particularly with his struggle with depression and bipolar disorder) and has used his platform to open up about his struggles with mental health.
Parkland is a suburban city, 42 miles (68 km) northwest of Miami, in northern Broward County, Florida, US. As of the 2020 census, the population of Parkland was 34,670. Parkland is part of the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to 6,166,488 people in 2020.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is a public high school in Parkland, Florida, United States. Established in 1990 as part of the Broward County Public Schools district and named after the writer Marjory Stoneman Douglas, it is the only public high school in Parkland, serving almost the entire city as well as a small section of neighboring Coral Springs.
Alfonso Calderón Atienzar is a Spanish-American student activist against gun violence. He is a survivor of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting and a founding member of the Never Again MSD movement.
The Parkland high school shooting was a mass shooting that occurred on February 14, 2018, when 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz opened fire on students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the Miami metropolitan area city of Parkland, Florida, killing 17 people and injuring 17 others. Cruz, a former student at the school, fled the scene on foot by blending in with other students and was arrested without incident approximately one hour and twenty minutes later in nearby Coral Springs. Police and prosecutors investigated "a pattern of disciplinary issues and unnerving behavior".
X González is an American activist and advocate for gun control. In 2018, they survived the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history, and, in response, co-founded the gun-control advocacy group Never Again MSD.
Never Again MSD is an American student-led political action committee for gun control that advocates for tighter regulations to prevent gun violence. The organization, also known by the Twitter hashtags #NeverAgain, and #EnoughIsEnough, was formed by a group of twenty students attending Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSD) in Parkland, Florida at the time of the deadly shooting in 2018, in which seventeen students and staff members were killed by the gunman, Nikolas Cruz, who was a 19-year-old former student of the school and was armed with an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle. The organization started on social media as a movement "for survivors of the Stoneman Douglas Shooting, by survivors of the Stoneman Douglas Shooting" using the hashtag #NeverAgain. A main goal of the group was to influence that year's United States mid-term elections, and they embarked on a multi-city bus tour to encourage young people to register to vote.
March for Our Lives (MFOL) is a student-led organization which leads demonstrations in support of gun control legislation. The first demonstration took place in Washington, D.C., on March 24, 2018, with over 880 sibling events throughout the United States and around the world, and was planned by Never Again MSD in collaboration with the nonprofit organization Everytown for Gun Safety. The event followed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting a month earlier, which was described by several media outlets as a possible tipping point for gun control legislation.
In 2018, protests against gun violence in the United States increased after a series of mass shootings, most notably at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14 that year. An organized protest in the form of a national school walkout occurred on March 14. March for Our Lives was held on March 24. Another major demonstration occurred April 20, 2018.
Alexander Blake Wind is an American student activist against gun violence. A survivor of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting and a founding member of the Never Again MSD movement, he is a critic of politicians who are supported by the National Rifle Association of America. Wind was one of five Stoneman Douglas students featured on the cover of Time magazine in 2018.
David Miles Hogg is an American gun control activist. He rose to prominence during the 2018 United States gun violence protests as a student survivor of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, helping lead several high-profile protests, marches, and boycotts, including the boycott of The Ingraham Angle. He has also been a target and scapegoat of several conspiracy theories.
Sarah Chadwick is an American activist against gun violence and one of the leaders of the Never Again MSD activist movement.
Jaclyn Corin is an American activist against gun violence. She survived the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018. She is one of the co-founders of March for Our Lives and the organizer of a student protest to Tallahassee, Florida. She has also been a vocal critic of politicians funded by the National Rifle Association.
Lauren Elizabeth Hogg is an American author and activist against gun violence. She survived the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018 and after became a co-founder of March for Our Lives and advocates against gun violence. She is the younger sister of gun control activist and former Marjory Stoneman Douglas student David Hogg. She graduated from MSD High School in 2021, three years after David.
Fred Guttenberg is an American activist against gun violence. His 14-year-old daughter Jaime Guttenberg was murdered in the Parkland high school shooting in suburban Fort Lauderdale, Florida on February 14, 2018. His son, Jesse, also a student at the school, ran from the shooting to meet him at a nearby store. He learned about his daughter's death from a friend who is a Coral Springs SWAT officer. Jessica McBride, for the website Heavy, described him as "one of the strongest voices for changes to gun laws in the wake of the mass shooting".
Kyle Kashuv is an American conservative activist. He survived the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting and subsequently advocated for gun rights, notably in opposition to his fellow survivors' March for Our Lives movement.
Andrew Scott Pollack is an American author, school safety activist, and entrepreneur whose daughter Meadow was one of the 17 murdered victims in the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018.
Ryan Blaine Petty is an American school safety activist. His 14-year-old daughter Alaina Petty was murdered in the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on February 14, 2018. Petty is credited with helping to pass the "Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act" Florida Senate Bill 7026 just three weeks after his daughter Alaina was murdered. At the federal level, Petty worked with Senators Orrin Hatch, Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson to pass the STOP School Violence Act and the Fix NICS Act of 2017. He has met frequently with former Florida governor Rick Scott, and many federal lawmakers.
Ryan Deitsch is an American student activist against gun violence, and a survivor of the Parkland massacre. He is a founding member of the Never Again MSD movement.
Samantha Deitsch is an American author and gun control activist who survived the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018.
Aalayah Eastmond is an American activist and advocate for gun violence prevention, social justice, and racial equality. After surviving the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, Eastmond began her activism during the 2018 United States gun violence protests. She has testified multiple times to the U.S. Congress. Eastmond is an executive council member of Team Enough, a youth-led gun violence prevention organization which is part of the Brady Campaign. Eastmond co-founded Concerned Citizens of DC in the wake of the murder of George Floyd to organize protests supporting social justice issues in Washington, D.C. She supports Black Lives Matter and protests against police brutality.
... Cameron Kasky has already done more to advocate for an assault weapons ban than a decade's worth of GOP legislators.
Cameron Kasky, the seventeen-year-old firebrand who started the Never Again movement with his classmates ... I watched Kasky, González, and their classmates show more moral clarity and vision than we've seen in the gun debate for a long time.
Kasky and most of the other kids in the park survived the attack and now they're pivoting hard trying to create a new national movement. They've announced plans for a massive rally against school and gun violence in Washington ...
Cameron Kasky is angry. He's angry because when he goes back to school, 17 people won't be there, 17 people who were killed in a mass shooting in Florida on Wednesday. And Cameron Kasky is with us now. Welcome.
Or Cameron Kasky taking Marco Rubio to task during CNN's town hall on Wednesday night.
Kasky cut him off and re-asked his question: 'No more – no more NRA money?'
During a recent interview, CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked Kasky what he would say to the conspiracy theorists who claim he is a paid actor.