PERSON: Kyle Kashuv

Pro-Gun Conservative Activist

Kyle Kashuv (born May 20, 2001) 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.

On February 14, 2018, Kashuv was present at the school where the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting occurred. He was 16 years old, attending his junior year. He later petitioned President Donald Trump to award Peter Wang, a student who had helped several others escape before he was killed, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In April 2018, Kashuv said he was questioned and intimidated by a Broward County officer and a school security officer after he posted on his Twitter account a photo of himself at a shooting range with an AR-15 rifle. Kashuv explained that he wanted to learn the “physical mechanics” of guns and how to defend himself, as well as to “show people it’s people that are the issue, not guns”. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High history teacher Greg Pittman said the gesture was in poor taste, which Kashuv denied. He said other students told him that Pittman called him the “next Hitler” while discussing the photo.

Kashuv is a supporter of the Republican Party. He supported Donald Trump in the 2016 United States presidential election, endorsing Trump’s ideas about immigration and construction of the Mexico–United States border wall, and Trump’s “America First” approach. Kashuv was initially guided by conservative commentators Ben Shapiro and Guy Benson. Kashuv also worked for Ron DeSantis’s campaign in the 2018 Florida gubernatorial election. By March 2018, Kashuv was in the process of producing a mobile phone application, ReachOut, which aims to help students who have emotional struggles reach out for help. In April 2018, Kashuv criticized CNN for being biased because one of their contributors, Joan Walsh, had liked a tweet by Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter died in the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. In July 2018, Kashuv gave a speech at the 2018 National Western Conservative Summit. Kashuv also gave a speech in April 2019 at the yearly meeting of the National Rifle Association of America (NRA).

The Miami Herald in July 2018 wrote that the conservative Second Amendment supporter Kashuv had “gained a national following as a counterweight to the March For Our Lives” movement. Associated Press in February 2019 described Kashuv as “the most prominent conservative voice among the students” who had survived the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. As of June 2019, Kashuv has amassed over 300,000 followers on Twitter.

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