Parkland student David Hogg ripped former Sen. Rick Santorum’s (R-Pa.) suggestion that student activists should learn CPR instead of marching against gun violence.
“At the end of the day, if you take a bullet from an AR-15 to the head, no amount of CPR is going to save you because you’re dead,” Hogg said Monday during an interview on CNN in response to Santorum’s comments.
Lauren Hogg, who is also a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, said she thinks the suggestion is “completely absurd.”
“The fact that he’s saying CPR when my friends are dying on our floor and nothing’s being done about it is just horrible,” she said on CNN.
“I think he’s just using it as a distraction to get the attention away from guns.”
Santorum made the suggestion over the weekend during a CNN interview. He said students should take CPR classes and prepare for active shooter situations instead of “looking to someone else to solve their problem.”
The comments came after hundreds of thousands of people took part in marches in cities across the country to protest gun violence and call for change.
Several students who survived the Parkland shooting spoke at the March for Our Lives event in Washington, D.C., and gave emotional speeches calling for action.
Students have vowed to continue fighting for gun control and have warned lawmakers they will be voted out of office if they don’t pass new gun laws.