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Students Gearing Up For Saturday's 'March For Our Lives' In Washington

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- As many as half a million people are preparing to march in Washington this week for stricter gun laws in response to the Florida school shooting that left 17 people dead.

Many of them will be high school students. Two of them are leading the charge.

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Just last week, students across the Tri-State Area and the country walked out of school for 17 minutes, inspired by the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Students at 3,000 schools protested gun violence in the wake of the deaths of students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

"I think we're what every American should be. We're people that are standing up and being politically active in our democracy in our own way and I think what we saw last week with the walking out of school," Majory Stoneman student David Hogg said. "Students were walking out of school, but now they're gonna walk into the polls when they're able to vote and they're gonna vote these people out of office."

Florida school shooting
A sign hangs on a fence at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Feb. 27, 2018. (Photo by Rhona Wise/AFP/Getty Images)

Among the most vocal students from Stoneman Douglas are seniors Hogg and Emma Gonzalez, both have whom have been flooded with death threats.

"Everybody gets death threats at some point in their life, I feel, be it from soccer," Gonzalez said.

"That's how we know what we're doing matters. People want to stop us. We're not gonna let them," Hogg added.

"They're attacking us personally because they can't find fault in our message," Gonzalez said.

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Survivors of the shooting in Florida have mobilized the "Never Again" movement. Their goal is to overcome political obstacles in order to influence legislation. They believe their fight will be a long one.

"They expect our generation to have a short attention span and we are not gonna let that happen, because the second we forget about this it can and it will be you," Hogg said.

Students plan to gather again this Saturday, March 24, for an event dubbed the "March For Our Lives" in Washington, where they say they'll send a message to lawmakers up close.

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