Earlier this month, the Firearms Policy Coalition launched a fundraising campaign themed around the birthday of political activist and Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg.

The gun rights group, in an April 11 email, urged members to contribute to the “DAVID HOGG BIRTHDAY MONEYBOMB,” a donation drive to support litigation against state and federal gun control laws. Donors, the message said, had a chance to win a shotgun, “something that would terrify David if he unwrapped it.” The campaign, which sought to raise $50,000, ran through Hogg’s birthday on April 12. 

Hogg was thrust into the national spotlight in 2018, after a shooter opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 of his classmates and educators. He subsequently co-founded March for Our Lives, a youth-led group derided by gun rights advocates and conservative pundits for advocating stricter gun laws. Now 26 years old and a major player in Democratic politics, Hogg remains a target of gun control opponents like the FPC. 

“The grifters at FPC are mocking school shooting survivors and using the deaths of my former classmates to line their pockets,” Hogg told The Trace in a statement this week, calling the gun rights group “a bunch of extremist losers.” 

An FPC spokesperson said fundraising on Hogg’s birthday has become a tradition. “Hogg is a public political figure who has dedicated himself to eliminating constitutionally protected rights,” the spokesperson said. “If he’s unhappy that such ‘losers’ in the gun rights community keep defeating his favorite forms of tyranny … then he can learn how to cope and seethe.”

The FPC’s campaign comes as the National Rifle Association — once the dominant voice of the American gun lobby — is struggling to regain its influence. During its heyday, the NRA was particularly skilled at retaining a loyal base of supporters willing to mobilize quickly and enthusiastically, said Brian Mittendorf, an Ohio State University accounting professor. But the group’s fortunes turned after a blockbuster investigation by The Trace and The New Yorker led to a civil corruption case brought by the New York attorney general. A jury found the NRA and its former CEO, Wayne LaPierre, liable and ordered LaPierre to pay the group more than $4.3 million in damages.

As the NRA’s support waned, the FPC emerged as one of the smaller gun groups best poised to fill the vacuum. The FPC cast itself as the libertarian, internet-savvy standard bearer for the next generation of gun rights advocates. A former NRA lobbyist told Bloomberg Law last year that the FPC could become “the NRA’s very powerful younger brother.”

The FPC’s donation plea — which encourages gun owners to turn Hogg’s birthday against him in “the most epic way possible” — unfolded as the group grappled with financial strain. A Trace analysis of tax filings found that the FPC has seen revenue from membership dues, donor contributions, and gifts nearly halved, from $8.1 million in 2023 to $4.1 million in 2024, the latest year available. “Annual giving to nonprofit organizations is dynamic and fluctuates for many reasons, such as shifting political climates, economic pressures, cost of living, and others,” the FPC spokesperson said.

Mittendorf said donations often dip when an organization’s marquee issue becomes less visible in national politics. In 2024, donors who normally would have given to gun rights groups might have instead contributed to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the focus of the right’s political imagination that year. The Second Amendment Foundation — another gun rights litigation group and a frequent co-plaintiff of the FPC — also saw contributions slow in 2024, though their donation revenue only dropped by 3 percent, compared to the FPC’s nearly 50 percent decline. 

“It’s the fact that both contributions and membership dues went down significantly,” said Mittendorf, who reviewed the FPC’s tax filings at The Trace’s request. The decline suggests the group is either losing a lot of members or never established a loyal member base. “That’s what stands out here,” he said.

In the April 11 fundraising email, the FPC encouraged prospective donors to “give David Hogg an even bigger middle finger on his birthday by becoming a sustaining member of the FPC Grassroots Army!”

Hogg said the group’s effort to raise money on his birthday is “downright sad.” He added, “Good thing their sick cause is a losing one.” 

Trace staff writer Chip Brownlee contributed reporting to this story.