(NEW YORK) – Drew Spiegel was preparing to march in the 2022 July 4 parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park when shots rang out.

“In this short period of time, seven people died and 48 others were injured,” the 19-year-old told ABC News. “I texted my parents to tell them I might not make it home from the 4th of July parade. And my life changed forever.

For more than a year after the shooting, Spiegel didn’t speak about it. That changed when he got to college and met the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.

“They asked me directly, ‘Are you a survivor of gun violence?’ » he said. “And I was like no, but technically I was present at a mass shooting. And they said, so yes.

The United States experiences 43,000 fatal shootings each year, and 120 people are shot and killed every day, according to Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action, an affiliate of Everytown.

“It’s bigger than a problem of mass shootings, it’s an epidemic of gun violence,” Spiegel said, citing the July assassination attempt And apparent September attempt on former President Donald Trump, who won a second term in the White House Tuesday, as proof of the scale of the problem.

“If Donald Trump, the former president of the United States, is not safe from gun violence, then no one is,” he said.

Spiegel is now sharing his story with people who might have different opinions than him.

“The change we are fighting for is not inconsistent with the Second Amendment. They can coexist,” he told ABC News. “We can have a country where people are allowed to have guns and also a country where you don’t have to worry about going to school.”

But he’s not just thinking about the next four years: he’s looking at how laws passed over the next few decades could save lives.

He found an ally in Representative Maxwell Frost, who won the elections in Florida’s 10th congressional district in 2022 and won re-election Tuesday. The 27-year-old Democrat is also a survivor of gun violence and previously served as national organizing director for the gun control advocacy group. March for our lives.

This movement did not result in the passage of gun control legislation, but Frost acknowledges that change takes time.

“The way you measure the success of a movement is to see that the seeds are planted in people,” Frost told ABC News. “I am the first person from this movement to serve in Congress. It’s a victory, right? And then we had the Office of Gun Violence Prevention(in 2023). It’s a victory.

However, Frost warned ABC News in August that he anticipated that progress would be reversed.

“If Donald Trump wins this election, one of the things he will do from day one is get rid of his office completely. Get rid of it,” he said. “This office helps save lives across the country. So getting rid of the office literally means more people will die from gun violence.

With Trump returning to the White House in January, it’s unclear how far gun control will progress. In 2018, the Trump administration bump stocks prohibitedwhich allow firearms to function essentially as automatic weapons. However, the Supreme Court canceled this ban in June.

“When I get back to the Oval Office, no one will lay a finger on your guns,” he said. told members of the National Rifle Association (NRA) in February.

Despite this, Spiegel hopes people will continue to fight for gun violence prevention laws, to prevent stories similar to his from happening again.

“I believe our rights and freedoms will be under more serious attack than ever before. But I don’t think it’s completely over,” he told ABC News. “I think there is still a country and, more importantly, our friends and family in this country worth fighting for. And we put our heads down and get back to work. Just keep fighting.

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