April 18, 2018
A survivor of the mass shooting that killed 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida is targeting two of the biggest investors in gun manufacturers.
In a tweet on Tuesday afternoon, David Hogg called for a boycott of The Vanguard Group, based in Malvern, Chester County, and BlackRock, using the hashtags #BoycottVanguard and #BoycottBlackrock.
.@blackrock and @Vanguard_Group are two of the biggest investors in gun manufacturers; if you use them, feel free to let them know. Thanks 😉
— David Hogg (@davidhogg111) April 17, 2018
Carolyn Wegemann, a spokeswoman for The Vanguard Group, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that most of the company’s funds “do not directly invest in the top three gun manufacturers.”
She said Vanguard is meeting with gun manufacturers and distributors to discuss how they’ll “mitigate the risks that their products pose and how they plan to help prevent such tragedies from happening again.”
Blackrock didn’t immediately respond to an email from the Associated Press.
Vanguard is the largest provider of mutual funds in the world, while BlackRock is the largest provider of exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Hogg, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, has already orchestrated a boycott of Laura Ingraham's prime-time program on Fox News after she insulted him on Twitter. That tweet sparked outrage on social media, leading Hogg to implore advertisers to boycott Ingraham’s show.
