America needs all of us to speak out, even when you have to fight to find the words.” Words once came easily, today I struggle to speak, but I’ve not lost my voice. “My recovery is a daily fight, but it makes me stronger. “I found one word, and then I found another,” she continues. But confronted by despair, confronted by paralysis, aphasia, I responded with grit and determination,” she tells me with confidence and humility all at once on Tuesday. “I know the darkest of days, days of pain and uncertain recovery. Capitals, capitals, capitals,” Giffords says in describing the incremental and far-flung set of goals.īut the reality of her own journey is never far from the minds of those on the receiving end of her advocacy. “You truly understand what this moment requires.” McBath joined the House in 2018, six years after her son was shot and killed. Lucy McBath, a Missouri Democrat, told Giffords.
You’re the beacon for the gun safety movement as a survivor,” Rep. Quietly, in measured and practiced phrases, she said that while plenty of work remains, it is important not to lose sight of their accomplishments. 11 attacks as a doomsday bunker but publicly described as a visitors’ center-all eyes were on the former Congresswoman. So, on Wednesday, as Giffords herself settled into the subterranean room in a conference center attached to the Capitol-the place prepared after the Sept. “In the context of social movements in this country, it’s still just a blink of an eye,” says Peter Ambler, the executive director of Giffords and a longtime adviser. Behind her are 100,000 gun owners who signed up for her Giffords Gun Owners for Safety Coalition: enough is enough, even if there are some disagreements about whether to chase background checks, red-flag laws, or limits on ammunition first. In short, Gabby Giffords is not someone who backs down, is someone who refuses to be silenced, and has no plans on stopping her advocacy for safer communities-with responsible gun limits on the books to stop the maddening cycle of violence that claimed her as yet another statistic. Read more: States Are Banning Assault Weapons. More than a half-million individual donors have opened their checkbooks to back the Giffords cause, and the 50-person staff is showing no signs of retreat. They secured $75 million in federal research on gun violence, once an unthinkable area of study. So effective are her efforts that more than $1 billion in community safety gun grants can trace at least some fingerprints to her group’s lobbying. While so many other advocacy groups are constantly scrambling for cash, Giffords seems to never be in a public-facing fundraising mode despite a $150 million pipeline of donors, and can occasionally cajole Republicans to at least consider a review of their stances on firearms. People who think they don’t want to do what Gabby wants them to do are very quickly relieved of that belief.” was melting the frozen hearts of her potential opponents.
“I watched Gabby pass legislation and win over the coldest hearts. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a self-avowed “bestie” to Giffords. “Anyone that knows Gabby Giffords-certainly anyone that knows Gabby Giffords well-isn’t the least bit surprised that after a decade with her sunny, incredibly sunny disposition, the glass-is-half-full approach to life and to any problem, that Giffords has had the success that it’s had,” says Rep. Yet neither the group, nor its founder, has given up on convincing Congress to act. All told, Giffords staffers and volunteers have spent 50,000 hours lobbying in D.C. Giffords, the organization she founded in the wake of the shooting, is a quiet powerhouse that operates well beyond Washington, and has had a hand in passing hundreds of laws at the state level restricting access to firearms. From the outside, it would appear she is struggling, but it’s clear in conversations with her and her coterie that she’s never been more clear about the mission.Īnd amid the bleak state of gun violence in America, the former Congresswoman has a string of successes to point at to give those on her side hope. It would be folly to mistake her slow walk for weakness, her sometimes halting speech for confusion about the tasks at hand. Giffords has the gravitas befitting a former member of Congress, a personal story that few-although too many-can match, and a manner that makes saying no to her near impossible. The room where Giffords sat Wednesday afternoon is named in honor of Gabe Zimmerman, Giffords’ aide and the only congressional staffer ever killed in the line of service.įamiliar faces greet her with “You look great!” and “I miss you!” She put her cane aside to fist bump first-term Rep. Six people died in the 2011 attack at a grocery store parking lot where the Congresswoman was having an informal meet-and-greet with constituents.
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