If you don’t think this scene is remarkable then you have never been elected to Congress and you have never been shot in the head. This woman’s experience, determination and strength is absolutely astonishing. The elephant in the room has to be the NRA and its insidious campaign against laws which might have prevented such a tragedy. Why are you crying, John Boehner? You and your party are directly responsible for this video and the pain it represents. Shame on you and all who prop you up!
Gabriella Gifford’s Resigns
The Times Editorial on this subject appears after the break…
Gabby Giffords’s Farewell
Editorial | NYTimes | 27 Jan 12
House members were moved to tears on Wednesday when Representative Gabrielle Giffords handed in her resignation because, she said, she needed more time to heal from the grievous gunshot wound she suffered last year at the hands of a would-be assassin. The rarest of Congressional events — a display of genuinely bipartisan tributes — was the parting gift from her colleagues along with unanimous approval of Ms. Giffords’s bill to fight drug trafficking along the Mexican border.
Left unstated amid the lawmakers’ celebration of Ms. Giffords’s survival was the abject failure of Congress and President Obama to repair the porous gun control laws that helped enable a mentally disturbed gunman to shoot and kill six and wound Ms. Giffords and 12 others in a matter of seconds last January.
Ringing vows were made immediately after the Tucson rampage to ban the high-volume ammunition clips used by the gunman, to prod states to submit names of the mentally disturbed to the federal watch list for gun sales, and to plug the notorious gun-show loophole that allows anyone to buy high-powered military weapons without a background check. None of those have happened. Democrats, who once had the good sense to pass a ban on assault rifles, no longer fight for its renewal, wary of the gun lobby’s wrath. President Obama gave a stirring speech after the Tucson shootings, but the White House has said and done too little about gun control since then.
Ms. Giffords, a supporter of gun rights, was sent off with good wishes from lawmakers who could have done something to stem the carnage. “I will recover and will return,” Ms. Gifford vowed in a her resignation letter, which was read by a colleague. Her departure offered a tragic display of how easily a brilliant career in public service was cut short because of the nation’s inadequate gun laws.
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