Free Republic

... I was proud of almost all your New England senators, who listened to their constituents, and put safety over the big money of the gun lobby. But like so many Granite Staters, 89 percent of whom support expanded background checks, I was disappointed with Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who did not listen to her constituents and who alone in New England voted in lockstep with the NRA.... When I voted for health care reform, which was not at all popular among my constituents, I got a lot of angry calls about my vote for health care. I listened. I felt...

Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords received the 2013 Profile in Courage award at the John F. Kennedy Library on Sunday in recognition of the political, personal, and physical courage she has demonstrated in her fearless public advocacy for policy reforms aimed at reducing gun violence.

Kelly has thrown down the gauntlet to Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s combative chief executive, on the opening day of the gun lobby’s annual convention in Houston, Texas. Writing in the Houston Chronicle, he accuses LaPierre and the rest of the NRA’s leadership of turning their back on the traditional values of the association in a simple drive for profit.

On NBC's Meet the Press last month, National Rifle Association honcho Wayne LaPierre, the face of the American gun lobby, delivered this message to New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg: "He's going to find out that this is a country of the people, by the people, and for the people, and he can't spend enough of his $27 billion to try to impose his will on the American public. He can't buy America." The day before, Bloomberg had announced that he would spend $12 million of his own money on an ad blitz pressing members of Congress to pass new...

You might have thought that the mangled bodies of 20 dead children would have been enough to overcome the crazed obsessions of the gun lobby. You might have believed that the courage and exhortations of a former congresswoman — her career cut short and her life forever changed by a would-be assassin’s bullet — would have pushed Congress to do the right thing. You might have reasoned that polls showing overwhelming public support for a sensible gun control measure would have persuaded politicians to take a modest step toward preventing more massacres. You would have been wrong. The U.S. Senate...

You know what it comes down to, Barry-0? People don’t trust you. Simple as that. Oh … certainly you do have your supporters. It’s not that NOBODY trusts you .... just most productive Americans above the median IQ. The moochers, leaches and parasites still trust you … they trust you to keep forking over the government checks. When the checks stop coming … when they find that a change of regimes in Washington will necessitate their actually becoming marginally productive again … their fealty to their long-gone here, the great and powerful 0bama, will fade to resentment and scorn. Your...

"The Newtown families and Gabby Giffords are in the gun debate to stay, and over time their voices will be more powerful than the NRA." So said Newsweek's Eleanor Clift during the predictions segment on PBS's McLaughlin Group Friday... "The culture of guns is beginning to go through a transformation in this country," she added. Maybe she should say that with a straight face to the people of Chicago so riddled with the kind of gun violence pending legislation will have absolutely no impact on whatsoever. But nobody seems to care about that - certainly not media members such as...

I am asking every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these senators demonstrated. I am asking for mothers to stop these lawmakers at the grocery store and tell them: You’ve lost my vote. I am asking activists to unsubscribe from these senators’ e-mail lists and to stop giving them money. I’m asking citizens to go to their offices and say: You’ve disappointed me, and there will be consequences.

SENATORS say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them. On Wednesday, a minority of senators gave into fear and blocked common-sense legislation that would have...

An Internet friend relayed this experience to me: A Moment Of Glee I got a phone call today from a true believer, paid for by Mayor Bloomberg. Supposedly from the “Gabby Giffords Campaign Against Gun Violence”, asking me to contact my congressman and senators to demand gun control. I about hurt myself trying to keep cool and reel him in. Such opportunities are very rare. So many ways to mess with their heads. Probably the best zinger was when I asked how Gabby Giffords *husband*, Mark Kelly was doing. What do you mean? Well, he confessed to committing a serious...

Mark Kelly, the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, still engages in target practice — with the same type of weapon used to shoot his wife. A CNN report showed Kelly shooting at water bottles and pots with a Glock 9 millimeter in the backyard of Giffords’s mother’s house. Giffords watched from a porch, cheering him on. Video @ link

Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, keep pushing for stricter gun laws as they continue to own weapons for recreational purposes, including the same type of gun used in the January 2011 shooting rampage that left Giffords wounded. However, the couple’s 9-mm Glock holds fewer bullets than the one used the Tucson shooting spree. Limiting the size of ammunition magazines is one of the goals of a new political action committee formed by Giffords and Kelly. The couple was interviewed in Tucson by CNN for a segment that aired Tuesday evening. Kelly was shown shooting pots and...

In an interview that will air on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 on April 9, Gabby Giffords looks on from her mother's porch while Mark Kelly shoots bottles and clay pots in the Arizona desert with a Glock 19 9mm. The gun is actually Giffords's, but Kelly shoots it and wasn't shy about admitting he had a 17-round magazine in it. Ironically, 17 rounds exceeds the 10 round limit that was being pushed in the Senate in February when Kelly spoke in favor of banning them. Nevertheless, after CNN filmed Kelly target shooting, he justified using a 17-round magazine for the...

Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was nearly killed more than 2 years ago by a man with a gun. Today, her brain injuries make speaking difficult, and yet she has become an active spokeswoman for new restrictions on guns. Ironically she has not lost her love of guns. Target practice is still a form of entertainment at her mother's house deep in the Arizona desert. Her husband Mark Kelly uses pots and water bottles as targets, while Giffords watches from the patio with her mother cheering him on.

Former congresswoman Gabby Giffords’ op-ed piece is getting a lot of praise on Twitter. This is the part of the piece that caught our attention: What they will do is create one fair system for all gun buyers, instead of the giant loophole we have now. Right now, we have one system where responsible gun owners take a background check — And then we have a second system for those who don’t want to take a background check. Those people — criminals, or people suffering from mental illness, like the young man who shot me — can buy as many...

News Print Article | Email Friend | Reprint Permissions FBI linked Gabby Giffords’ shooter to Christian pro-life groups by Ben Johnson Fri Apr 05, 2013 19:32 EST Comments () Tags: anti-christian bigotry, jared lee loughner, obama administration, terrorism TUCSON, AZ, April 5, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An FBI agent drew attention to a possible connection between the man who shot Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and “Christian anti-abortion groups,” according to newly released documents in the 2011 shooting. In January 2011, Jared Lee Loughner engaged in a shooting spree that left six people dead and 13, including Congresswoman Giffords, wounded. An investigating...

Three events that made no sense at the time now make sense. I'll C&P the substance in the first comment so the HTML will (hopefully) transfer.

Breitbart News can now report that although Gabby Giffords' husband Mark Kelly successfully purchased a .45 caliber semi-automatic handgun from Diamondback Police Supply on March 5, the gun store had denied his attempts to buy a handgun approximately two weeks before that. According to sources, when Kelly first came into Diamondback Police Supply in February he tried to use a Texas ID to buy a handgun and was denied. Then, thirteen days later--on March 5-- Kelly walked back into the gun store with an Arizona ID that he used to purchase a handgun. He posted a video of that purchase...

Well, I think, after something like, you know, 20 first graders being murdered in their classrooms, you know, it is important to take action. And the American people are demanding action now. You know, the timeline of that, you know, sometimes, especially with a polarized Congress, these things can take a long time.

Leading gun-control advocate Mark Kelly warned Republican senators Sunday that trying to block a vote on new firearms legislation that includes universal background checks could hurt their re-election efforts. Kelly, a former astronaut and Navy captain, directed his remarks to Sens. Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, among five Republican senators who have suggested they will filibuster a debate and full floor vote. “They should listen to their constituents” and not get in the way of the debate, Kelly told “Fox News Sunday.”

Almost everyone who crossed paths with Jared Loughner in the year before he shot former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords described a man who was becoming more unhinged and delusional by the day.

Gabrielle Giffords’ Husband Pulls Daughter’s Dog Off Sea Lion In Laguna Beach LAGUNA BEACH (CBSLA.com) — Gabrielle Giffords’ husband pulled his daughter’s dog off of a sea lion in Laguna Beach over the weekend. The incident, which was captured on video, happened around 1:40 p.m. Saturday at Goff Cove Beach by the Montage Laguna Beach. Retired astronaut Mark Kelly’s 18-year-old daughter, who was on vacation with her father and Giffords, was walking the American bulldog on a leash when the 65-pound dog saw the sea lion, ran off and attacked. Nathan, who declined to give his last name, happened to...

Diamondback Police Supply, the gun dealership that was to sell the AR-15 type rifle to Mark Kelly, Gabby Gifford's Husband, has returned his money now that it has learned that he did not intend the rifle for personal use. Here is the statement: Statement of Douglas MacKinlay, Owner/President, Diamondback Police Supply Co., Inc. “While I support and respect Mark Kelly’s 2nd Amendment rights to purchase, possess, and use firearms in a safe and responsible manner, his recent statements to the media made it clear that his intent in purchasing the Sig Sauer M400 5.56mm rifle from us was for reasons...

A Tucson gun store owner has decided to rescind the sale of a military-style rifle to Mark Kelly, the husband of former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, after Kelly said he had intended the purchase to make a political point about how easy it is to obtain the kind of firearms he's lobbying Congress to ban. Kelly's March 5 purchase of an AR-15-style rifle and a 45.-caliber handgun at Diamondback Police Supply sparked a frenzy of reaction from both sides of the debate after he posted to Facebook a photo of himself shopping. A background check took only a matter of...

Recently, Mark Kelly attempted to purchase an AR-15 from a Tucson gun dealer to make a political point about background checks. In doing so, Mark Kelly completed ATF Form 4473. Question 11.a. states the following: Are you the actual transferee/buyer of the firearm(s) listed on this form? Warning: You are not the actual buyer if you are acquiring the firearm(s) on behalf of another person. If you are not the actual buyer, the dealer cannot transfer the firearm(s)to you.Upon signing the form, Mark Kelly acknowledged this: I certify that my answers to Section A are true, correct, and complete. I...

Gabrielle Giffords’ husband pulled his daughter’s dog off of a sea lion in Laguna Beach over the weekend. The incident, which was captured on video, happened around 1:40 p.m. Saturday at Goff Cove Beach by the Montage Laguna Beach.

The owner of a Tucson gun store where Mark Kelly recently purchased an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle canceled the transaction because Kelly did not plan to keep the rifle for his personal use. Doug MacKinlay, owner of Diamondback Police Supply at 170 S. Kolb Road, posted on the store's Facebook page Monday that he canceled the transaction March 21. A full refund was sent to Kelly via express mail, MacKinlay said. "I determined that it was in my company's best interest to terminate this transaction prior to his returning to my store to complete the federal form 4473 and NICS (National...

A Tucson gun store owner has decided to rescind the sale of a military-style rifle to Mark Kelly, the husband of former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, after Kelly said he had intended the purchase to make a political point about how easy it is to obtain the kind of firearms he's lobbying Congress to ban. Kelly's March 5 purchase of an AR-15-style rifle and a 45.-caliber handgun at Diamondback Police Supply sparked a frenzy of reaction from both sides of the debate after he posted to Facebook a photo of himself shopping. .... "While I support and respect Mark Kelly's...

Amateur video shows former astronaut Mark Kelly, the husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, yanking away a dog that clamped down on a baby sea lion at a California beach.

LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. -- Amateur video shows former astronaut Mark Kelly, the husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, yanking away a dog that clamped down on a baby sea lion at a California beach.

The Navy’s newest ship will be the USS Gabrielle Giffords. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus made the announcement at a Pentagon ceremony today, calling Giffords someone whose name is synonymous with courage. Former Rep. Gabby Giffords looked on at the Pentagon as Mabus made the announcement in a public ceremony. Also in attendance at this afternoon’s brief ceremony in the Pentagon Courtyard was Roxana Green, the mother of 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green. Christina-Taylor was among those killed in last year’s deadly shooting rampage in Tucson that targeted Giffords as she met constituents outside a supermarket. Roxana Green will be the ship’s sponsor....

Mark Kelly's campaign against "assault weapons" such as the AR-15 rifle has sparked a local backlash. On March 13, a Tucson, Arizona radio host published a photograph of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords holding an AR-15 rifle at a gun range. Giffords has since confirmed that the photograph is authentic. James T. Harris, blogging at the website of "101.4 FM The Truth," wrote: What is wrong with this picture? Absolutely nothing, and prior to the aggressive progressive opportunistic fear mongering in the wake of Sandy Hook, this picture would have raised no eyebrows and garnered little public attention. However, in response...

Mark Kelly's campaign against "assault weapons" such as the AR-15 rifle has sparked a local backlash. On March 13, a Tucson, Arizona radio host published a photograph of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords holding an AR-15 rifle at a gun range. Giffords has since confirmed that the photograph is authentic.

A lot of twists and turns in this story from Breitbart.com. Shock, no one else in the media apart from Fox is bothering to cover it. Allah has a good summary. Mark Kelly, Gabby Giffords' husband, got caught buying an AR-15. Not a crime, of course, but certainly a strange purchase for a gun-control advocate looking to ban the weapon. He then claimed he was buying it to demonstrate how easy it is to buy an AR-15. Couple problems with this story: 1. He didn't actually buy it. The gun he intended to buy was on consignment, and there's a...

Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly using the emotion that comes from her 2011 shooting in Tuscon, Arizona to demand “something needs to be done” to stop “gun violence,” and that something (according to Mark Kelly) is the ban of “assault weapons.” He has testified to that effect before the U.S. Senate, as well as in Colorado. However, it appears that Mark Kelly is another shining example of the belief of the civilian disarmament folks that the same logic they use to try and disarm the general population doesn’t apply to themselves.

Mark E. Kelly, gun-control proponent and husband to former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, recently purchased an AR-15 (an "assault weapon," he called it)—which he now says he intended as an illustration of the need for more stringent gun laws. Kelly reportedly bought the AR-15 and a 1911-style semi-automatic pistol at Diamondback Police Supply in Tucson, Arizona. Various sources contacted Breitbart News once Kelly made the purchase, and after we began investigating the details surrounding the purchase, Kelly announced on his Facebook that he was not going to keep the AR-15, which he has yet to pick up from the store.

<p>Former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is urging key senators to support expanded background checks for gun purchases in new television ads airing in Iowa and her home state of Arizona.</p> <p>The ads specifically target Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ), two lawmakers who have made statements supporting background checks in the past. The ads include black and white images after high-profile mass shootings at a Colorado movie theater and a Connecticut elementary school.</p>

Former congresswoman and shooting survivor Gabrielle Giffords urged members of congress to "be bold, be courageous" at the first gun violence hearing since the Newtown massacre.

According to CNN, Gabrielle Giffords, Mark Kelly and the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre will testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on America’s gun violence crisis. You can watch it below. It begins at 10:00 AM ET.

Houston trial lawyers Steve and Amber Mostyn say they’re giving $1 million to a gun-control group formed by former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly. Steve Mostyn is a major Democratic campaign contributor, backing candidates in Texas and nationally. He gave $3 million to Priorities USA Action, a super PAC aiding President Obama’s re-election. He’s perhaps best known in Texas for launching a media campaign against Rick Perry two years ago in which he chided the Republican governor for his reluctance to debate in his 2010 reelection race with a full-page newspaper ad depicting Perry and...

Connecticut legislator DebraLee Hovey, a six-term Republican state representative for the towns of Monroe and Newtown, had some candid, if ill-advised words for Gabrielle Giffords, who visited with victims of the Sandy Hook shooting on Friday. "Gabby Gifford [sic] stay out of my towns!!" Hovey wrote on her then-public Facebook, via mobile from Saint Pete Beach, Florida. "It was political," she elaborated in the comments, according to cringey screenshots obtained by the Hartford Courant. "The Lt Gov was there […] and ALL political types KNOW it is courteous to let sitting Reps known when another political [sic] is in their...

A national initiative aimed at curbing gun violence was launched by former US. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, on Tuesday -- the second anniversary of the shooting that killed six people and left her critically injured. A new campaign website, Americans For Responsible Solutions, promised to “launch a national dialogue and raise funds to counter influence of the gun lobby.” The couple last week visited Newtown, Conn., where a gunman opened fire in an elementary school, killing 20 children and six adults in December. They also met with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a gun control...

Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly launched a website aimed at curbing gun violence Tuesday, the second anniversary of the mass shooting in Arizona that left her critically wounded. "Two years ago, a mentally ill young man shot me in the head, killed six of my constituents, and wounded 12 others," Giffords wrote on the website. "Since that terrible day, America has seen 11 more mass shootings -- but no response from Congress to prevent gun violence." The website, titled "Americans for Responsible Solutions", also features an opinion article that the couple penned, which was published by...

Former US Representative Gabrielle Giffords will visit Newtown, Conn., the site of last month's deadly shooting in which 20 first graders were killed. Giffords survived a mass shooting in her home state of Arizona two years ago... ... Giffords plans to attend a private event at a local home on Friday, Steven Jensen, spokesman for Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman, said in an email. The event will have no media access and Giffords' plans are still developing and may change

The husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords ripped the National Rifle Association (NRA) on Friday for a press conference that defied “common sense” and defended “extreme pro-gun positions.” “Gabby and I are extremely disappointed by the NRA's defiant and delayed response to the massacre of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School,” Mark Kelly said in a statement. “The NRA could have chosen to be a voice for the vast majority of its own members who want common-sense, reasonable safeguards on deadly firearms, but instead it chose to defend extreme pro-gun positions that aren't even popular among...

The federal judge who sentenced former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' gunman is advocating a nationwide ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines to take the "mass out of mass shootings." "There is just no reason civilians need to own assault weapons and high-capacity magazines," Judge Larry Allan Burns wrote in Thursday's Los Angeles Times. Since Jared Lee Loughner killed six people and wounded Giffords with his 31-round magazine Glock pistol, there have been six deadlier mass shootings, Burns wrote. "But reasonable, good-faith debates have boundaries, and in the debate about guns, a high-capacity magazine has always seemed to me beyond them,"...

The Congressional District 2 showdown between Republican Martha McSally and Democrat Ron Barber has gone into overtime - and it could come down to instant replay. McSally holds a minuscule lead of less than two-tenths of a percentage point over Barber - a 400-vote difference in a race in which more 228,000 votes have been tabulated, with several days of additional vote counting to go. What remains are an estimated 70,000 votes in Pima County, about 27,000 of them provisional ballots that need to be verified and the rest early ballots that were dropped off at polling places or delivered...

Did anyone else hear Debbie Wasserman Schultz loudly say 'I' just before Giffords launched into her rousing Pledge of Allegiance last night?

http://m.newsbusters.org/blogs/pj-gladnick/2011/01/19/palm-beach-post-columnist-slams-parents-rep-giffords-doctor-supporting-&themeId=0&group=blogs&tag=lambiet%20parents%20giffords%20lemole%20rep&traditional=true&title=Palm%20Beach%20Post%20Columnist%20Slams%20Parents%20of%20Rep%20Giffords%20Doctor%20for%20Supporting%20Tea%20Party%20Candidates

The only good thing I got out of the DNC Convention. Politics aside, may God bless Gabrielle Giffords and her continued recovery.