PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. – Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg claims "there have been seven assassination attempts" on his life in the past year.
Hogg made the remarks in an interview with The Washington Post released Tuesday.
The 19-year-old activist said he sees those who would want him dead as "misguided and misinformed of what we're actually here to talk about."
"But I also realize, if they kill me, that's probably the stupidest thing they could do to try to end the movement," Hogg told the newspaper. "Because that would make it even more successful in the end. Because it would invigorate us and create f---ing change."
Hogg was one of the student leaders behind the #NeverAgain gun-control advocacy group in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018.
The massacre claimed the lives of 14 students and three faculty members at Hogg's school. Seventeen others were wounded.
"Honestly, I realize that it's horrible that I have to live through this, and it is traumatizing," Hogg said. "But you eventually become desensitized to it. Like, oh, your house got SWAT-ted. You got a call from the police saying someone said that everyone in your family had been killed and that you are being held hostage for $100,000. Right? That becomes part of daily life. It's just something that you have to get through. But, I mean, what am I going to do? Stop?"
Hogg was referring to a June 2018 incident in which the Broward Sheriff's Office SWAT team was called to his family's Parkland home in reference to a hostage situation. The call turned out to be a prank.
Now that he's the legal voting age, Hogg said he's hoping for change in the 2020 presidential election and will be casting his ballots with a mind toward ending gun violence.
Hogg said he also doesn't believe that his generation alone will save the country.
"It's not going to be this generation that saves America," he said. "It has to be all of our generations working together in combination with the fury and energy and vigor of the youth and the wisdom of older generations. The trail has been blazed before, but it's very overgrown. We have to come back and figure out where that path is and not make that same mistake again so other generations don't make it when they come back down this path."