CINCINNATI, Ohio—It's been two years since a gunman walked into the Fifth Third Building in Cincinnati's Fountain Square — firing dozens of shots and killing three people. But it's not only the families of those victims whose lives have changed. Since then, one of the survivors and her husband have used the shooting as motivation to make a difference in the world.

​​Waller Austin says September 6, 2018 was the worst day of his life.

“My world was collapsing on my drive to Cincinnati that morning," he said.

It was that day – exactly two years ago – when his wife Whitney became one of the victims of the mass shooting in Cincinnati’s Fountain Square.

But unlike three other victims, she managed to survive.

“As soon as I arrived and the nurse came up to me and says Whitney’s been shot 12 times, but it seems like everything is the best you could ever hope for, all major organs and arteries were missed," Waller recalled. "At that point, it was like something and it was like Hallelujah! So what now?”

The Austins decided they needed to use Whitney’s second chance on life to make a difference. So, the couple created Whitney Strong – a bipartisan nonprofit aimed at reducing gun violence.

“The fact that it’s become political is the reason why Whitney Strong is here to begin with," he said. "Because it shouldn’t be, public safety shouldn’t be political when it comes to guns.”

But Waller didn’t stop there. To cope with the trauma, he turned to what he does best – art — and creates sculptures depicting the gun and bullets that were used in the Fountain Square shooting. 

“It helped get my mind, even though I was making and producing guns everyday and bullets everyday, I wasn’t really thinking about that so much more like, how are we moving on from here," Waller said.

Each piece in the negligence collection shows a pistol and 35 bullets — all made from Crayola crayons. Each gun is broken in some way to show Waller’s complicated relationship with guns.

“What I’m trying to do with the pieces is trying to help people investigate their own relationship with guns," he said.

Each unique piece of art is sold online, with 50 percent of sales going towards Whitney Strong 

“The guns that I sell only save lives," Waller said.

Waller plans to continue making more replica guns to get the word out about gun violence and the safe way to use guns.

“If they’re not in your face, they should be because it’s a problem that so many people, me included, for the longest time just discounted or it didn’t concern me, so it didn’t feel like it could touch me," Waller said. "But it absolutely will touch you.”