Parkland Survivor Wants Investors to Boycott BlackRock and Vanguard

By Chris MorrisFormer Contributing Writer
Chris MorrisFormer Contributing Writer

    Chris Morris is a former contributing writer at Fortune, covering everything from general business news to the video game and theme park industries.

    David Hogg, the Parkland student who has become a leading activist on gun legislation, is taking two big investment firms to task for their holdings in gun companies.

    Via Twitter, Hogg called for boycotts of BlackRock (BLK) and The Vanguard Group, which own large percentages of firearms manufacturers Storm Ruger and American Outdoor Brands.

    The managers of exchange traded funds (ETFs) are the latest boycott for Hogg, who led the campaign against Laura Ingraham after she mocked him on Twitter for failing to get into certain colleges. That boycott resulted in several advertisers leaving the Fox News host’s show.

    While not addressing Hogg’s tweets directly, BlackRock said it plans to create new funds that will not include gun manufacturers and plans to hold discussions with those companies about their business. Vanguard said it already had such a fund.

    Hogg, a high school senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., has been among the most prominent survivors-turned-activists pushing for stricter gun control following the deaths of 17 of his classmates in a mass shooting in February. His prominence has made him a focus of Second Amendment activists and far-right conservatives, including some who have gone so far as to paint him as a fraudulent “crisis actor.”