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Two and half years after being shot in the head, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords visited a shooting range and fired a gun, her first stop on a seven-state, seven-day bus tour to push for expanded background checks for firearms purchases. Accompanied by her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, on their "Rights and Responsibilities Tour," Giffords, wearing a green cardigan and an arm brace, smiled and waved after she shot the gun at the Clark County Shooting Complex in Las Vegas. Kelly also got in some target practice at the range. This was the first time Giffords shot a gun since...

CINCINNATI - Before riding in the Northside Fourth of July parade on Thursday, former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, will make a plea for expanded background checks for gun buyers. Both Giffords, who was critically wounded in a shooting rampage in 2011, and Kelly are gun owners and say they continue to support gun rights. Giffords fired a gun at a range Monday for the first time since she was shot. They are spreading their message to seven states in seven days on their “Rights and Responsibilities Tour.” They are hoping to appeal to...

Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords kicked off a seven-state tour Monday to advocate for universal gun background checks. Giffords and husband Mark Kelly started their day in Las Vegas demonstrating that they, too, are gun owners. Giffords fired a gun at a shooting range. It's the first time she's used a gun since a deranged gunman shot her in the head in 2011. A dozen other people were also wounded and six more were killed. Giffords, who's still recovering from the attack, is speaking up for change....

... 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...