Lilli Petersen

In the early hours of Sunday, June 12, 2016, an attacker entered Pulse, an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and killed 49 people. Brandon Wolf, now 30, survived the attack by hiding in the bathroom until he could escape. His friends, Andrew Leinonen and Juan Guerrero, were killed in the shooting. On the third anniversary of the shooting, these are his words.

"For too long, we've waited on adults and Congress specifically to take action on working on comprehensive gun reform," EMPOWER youth organizer Kaleab Jegol, 17, tells Elite Daily.

For some Americans, there is a single, major issue that will always guide who they vote for — abortion, taxes, or foreign policy are just a few that come to mind. But former Rep. Gabby Giffords wants to see more voters make gun control their make-or-break issue.

The 2017 federal budget, which is still under negotiation in advance of a December 9 deadline, will mark 20 years since Congress last approved federal funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to conduct research into gun violence. And that's a big problem, advocates for gun control say.

Parker's first clue that something was wrong on the morning her daughter died came when she went to go watch the recording of Alison's early morning television segment, as she did every day. “[She would be on the air at] the crack of dawn. So we would never get up that early,” Parker said. Instead, she would wait and watch the online version a little bit later. On that morning, she tried to watch the broadcast as usual — but the stream was blank.

And it's possible that laws keeping guns out of the hands of abusers are about to get looser. In a case before the Supreme Court this term, Voisine v. United States , two convicted domestic abusers are challenging the law that forbids them from owning guns, arguing that their crimes technically don't qualify as domestic assault. If the court rules in favor of them, it would narrow the definition of domestic abuse, and undermine the laws preventing those with violent histories from getting guns."