CINCINNATI, Ohio– Congress is on the verge of funding research on gun violence for the first time in 20 years. Supporters of reducing gun violence see it as a big win.

Whitney Austin survived being shot 12 times last September at the downtown Cincinnati 5/3 bank. She knew after her personal experience; something had to change.

“I knew when I was in that revolving door and believed that I was going to live when I saw Cincinnati police department, I thought, I have to do something about this,” Austin said. “I will be in a position to do something about this in a way that many others are not. And I have to take this gift, and I have to pay it forward.”

And that’s exactly what she did- creating Whitney/Strong, an organization to end gun violence in a bipartisan way.

“Nearly everyone believes that we have a problem,” Austin said. “But many people disagree on how to solve the problem. So if you’re going to solve the problem, what do you do? You do research, you gather data, and you get the smartest people in our country to tell us to do A, B, and C. And if you aren’t even providing that, how can we ever get to those solutions?”

Austin said when she heard the House passed the spending deal earlier this week, she was emotional.

“I just started to cry,” she said. “I was like, I know it’s not done, I know it’s not a done deal, but this is such big news, and I am so happy.”

The Senate needs to pass the deal by the end of the week, which would then make its way to the Presidents desk for a signature. If it passes, $25 million would be allocated to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health to study gun violence and ways to prevent it.

For many advocates for reducing gun violence like Austin, the progress already made never seemed to be possible.

“Is this real? This can’t be real,” Austin recalls. “Because this is something that I have talked about quite often at the federal level with members of Congress, and I just thought it wasn’t going to happen.”

And Austin says that no matter what happens, she will continue to fight for reducing violence in our country.

“To me, this about real lives that are dying every day,” Austin said. “I know people think about what happened to me and what happened on September 6, and that is important, but there are people dying every day from suicide, from street violence, accidental deaths, domestic violence. It is all-important. And so I will do whatever I can to help people understand that this is not for a political win, this is to save lives.”

If you would like to learn more about Whitney/Strong, follow this link.