On the last night of the Democratic National Convention, Gabby Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, took the stage. She offered a powerful speech about gun safety from the perspective of a woman who survived an assassination attempt.
Before Giffords became known as a gun control activist, she was a rising politician. She launched her political career in 2001 when she successfully ran for the Arizona House of Representatives and was subsequently elected to the Arizona Senate. At the time, she was the youngest woman in history to have secured the position. Within a few years, she began her congressional campaign and soon became only the third woman in Arizona history to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, a role she served from 2007 to 2012.
By 2011, Giffords had accomplished much in her political care, including pushing for greater healthcare access, advocating for raising the minimum wage, and supporting the military and veterans. As she mentioned in her DNC speech, she was a “rising star,” and many expected she’d one day run for Governor of Arizona. However, in one “terrible, terrible day,” her life changed forever when she became the victim of an assassination attempt and mass shooting.
What happened to Gabby Giffords?
In her DNC speech, Giffords briefly recounted her life growing up in Arizona, her political career, and her marriage to Kelly, a former NASA astronaut and current U.S. Senator. Then, she stated, “On January 8, 2011, a man tried to assassinate me.” She continued, “He shot 19 people. He killed six.” Meanwhile, Giffords said she almost died and had to fight for her life after the incident. Although she survived, it wasn’t an easy journey, as she recounted learning to walk again “one step at a time” and talk again “one word at a time.” Giffords then thanked Joe Biden for always “checking in” on her throughout her recovery and threw her support behind Kamala Harris, who she believes can beat “the gun lobby” and “gun trafficking.”
Her powerful speech only gives a brief snapshot into her incredible survival story. On January 8, 2011, Giffords was hosting a meet-and-greet in front of a Safeway store in Casas Adobes, AZ. She was trying to give her fellow citizens a rare chance to speak directly with a member of Congress. The gathering was soon interrupted by Jared Lee Loughner, a conspiracy theorist who despised Giffords because he didn’t believe women should hold positions of power. He opened fire on the crowd, injuring 19 people, including Giffords, who suffered a gunshot wound to the head. Six people were killed in the shooting, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old child.
Giffords came very close to dying. If her heroic, newly instated intern, Daniel Hernandez, hadn’t immediately jumped into action to staunch the blood flow, she likely wouldn’t have survived. Upon arriving at the hospital, she received emergency brain surgery to remove skull fragments from her brain and remove part of her skull to make room for swelling. Although she was put into a coma and remained in critical condition, doctors expressed early hope for her survival, given that the bullet only passed through one side of her brain and did not cross the hemisphere, which would’ve caused more catastrophic damage.
Even though she survived, she still suffered severe brain damage. Her recovery was a years-long process as she learned to breathe on her own, walk, talk, write, and regain movement in her right side. She underwent numerous surgeries and lost half of her vision. To this day, she still struggles with aphasia. On top of her recovery, she dealt with the grief of eventually learning six people had been killed in the shooting. Although she resigned from her political career to focus on recovery, she has never stopped speaking out and advocating for others.
She and her husband are now prominent gun control activists. In 2022, she founded the Giffords Center for Violence Intervention and consistently advocated for lawmakers to pass gun control legislation at the federal level. After every mass shooting in America, she has been a persistent presence advocating for the victims and victims’ families. Giffords is a prime example of the unnecessary devastation and horrors that innocent civilians face because of a lack of gun control, horrors of which will only be on the rise with a Republican in office. Republicans like Donald Trump want to ignore the stories of Giffords and every other victim of gun violence in America, but she’s living proof that the issue has been neglected far too long, and America needs a president who will continue to care and show compassion to survivors and victims.
Published: Aug 23, 2024 12:29 pm