Gabby Giffords

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Good Advice: Don’t Give Up On Gun Control

“If Congress won’t help keep guns out of the wrong hands, then we need to change Congress.”

In 2011, Jared Lee Loughner attempted to assassinate former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, shooting her in the head at point-blank range before turning the gun on a crowd, killing six. Giffords survived, and has since relearned how to walk, talk, and read. She’s also become a fierce advocate for gun control. Below, Giffords shares why she doesn’t feel helpless toward gun violence and what she thinks we can do to institute more rational policies.

My husband Mark and I are both gun owners. We respect and value the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans to own and use guns. But gun violence is a national crisis, with firearms claiming 33,000 lives each year. It’s an incredibly complex problem—only a fraction of gun tragedies involve someone who is dangerously mentally ill.

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