Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence honors Chelsea Handler with activism award at its annual fundraiser gala
It's been almost a year since Omar Mateen pledged allegiance to ISIS and opened fire at an Orlando, Florida, nightclub, killing 49 people and injuring at least 50 more in the deadliest mass shooting the United States has seen in recent history.
"It's still there," Angel Colon said. "There's no day that goes by when I don't think about that night."
Angel Colon and along with Angel Santiago and Luis Roldan -- all Pulse nightclub survivors -- have been working with the Brady Campaign and Center on educating people about gun safety and gun violence prevention and spoke to AOL about all the initiatives at its annual fundraiser gala on Wednesday.
"What happened to us and what happened to our families and to the families of those that are no longer unfortunately here," Santiago said. "We're trying to prevent that from happening again."
The Brady Campaign is an organization with a national network of over 90 grassroots chapter affiliates prepared to prevent gun violence at the community level. In 1993, the Brady Bill was signed into law, which required criminal background checks at federally licensed dealers in order to prevent dangerous people from purchasing guns.
"Whether you own guns or not, whether you love guns or hate guns, you want to be safer," president of the Brady Campaign Dan Gross said. "You want to keep guns out of the hands of convicted violent criminals, domestic abusers, or the dangerously mentally-ill."
See images from the event:
The event, which honored comedian and activist Chelsea Handler this year, started with showing devastating scenes of chaos from the Pulse nightclub shooting. Colon, Santiago and Roldan took the stage shortly thereafter and shared an inspiring message of love and positivity for the future, while Dan Gross delivered a fiery speech on why the country and our communities need to be safer places.
"I would demonstrate at every turn how [President Trump] could care less about making America safe," Gross told AOL. "He could care less whether you own a gun or not, he could care less about your rights, he could care less about protecting you -- the only thing he cares about is paying back an industry that supported his campaign."
Key remarks were also delivered by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and co-chairs Kevin Quinn and actress Kristen Stewart. Will Ferrell and his wife Viveca, who facilitated the live auction portion of the night, sat in attendance and "Mad Men" star January Jones awarded her friend and "triple-threat" Chelsea Handler with the Brady Bear Award.
"I want to fight for people," Handler passionately said during her acceptance speech. "I want to do something that makes a difference and I've never been more galvanized in my life. I just think that this is something that we can never not participate in. You f***ing show up. Every single night. Don't ever give up."
