Justin Powell's family is organizing his funeral this week while other American families are preparing for Christmas.

Powell, 16, died in a shootout at an apartment complex in Atlanta, U.S. state of Georgia, nearly a week ago.

"I can't live without my baby. I can't live without my baby. I don't know what to do," Powell's mother, Natasha Hinton, told a local media outlet, trying to fight back tears.

According to another family member, Powell had "an infectious smile" and loved basketball and music. He had a plan for his future but it could never be realized.

Atlanta police said the shooting stemmed from a social media dispute, which also killed 14-year-old Malik Grover and injured three other teenagers.

"A week before Christmas, families should be preparing to celebrate," Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said. "Instead, we have parents in Atlanta doing what no parent should ever have to do: laying their children to rest."

Dickens emphasized the issue of gun violence in the United States, which has taken more than 43,000 lives this year, including nearly roughly 1,600 children and teens.

This summer, a gunman broke into an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 students and two teachers with an AR-15-style rifle.

Faith Mata, a 21-year-old college student, lost her little sister Tess in the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.

"Our life has changed forever," Mata said during a hearing on Capitol Hill earlier this month. "It has darkened because our light has left."

"Tess will never get to experience the life we had prayed she would live, she will never graduate high school, never fall in love herself, never be present at my wedding," Mata continued. "We will never know how scared she was in her last moments in that classroom."

Activists group set up a temporary memorial made up of 45,000 white and orange flowers at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in June, dedicating it to gun violence victims in the United States.

Former U.S. Congresswoman and shooting survivor Gabby Giffords tweeted, when she looks at the flowers, she imagines "45,000 beautiful lives stolen by gun violence. 45,000 empty seats at the kitchen table. 45,000 dreams never achieved."

Just before Thanksgiving last month, the United States suffered a pair of mass shootings in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Chesapeake, Virginia, which led to 11 fatalities and dozens of injuries combined.

"Too many families will have an empty seat at their tables at Thanksgiving and Christmas because of our gun violence epidemic," Virginia state Senator L. Louise Lucas wrote on Facebook, calling for more action to "stop this violence."

U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law what has been described as a gun safety bill before the end of June but critics and gun control advocates have argued the measure is far from enough to root out America's gun violence.

This month also marked the 10th anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, in which 26 people, including 20 children aged 6 to 7, were killed in Newtown, Connecticut.

Biden issued a statement last week, saying that he's "determined" to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines like those used at Sandy Hook and other mass shootings in the United States.

"Enough is enough," he said. "Our obligation is clear. We must eliminate these weapons that have no purpose other than to kill people in large numbers."

However, it is unlikely for a ban on assault weapons to be approved by the U.S. Congress with Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives for the next term and advocating for the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms