SEARCH LATEST NEWS
Gabby Giffords Home Privacy Archive
GABBY GIFFORDS
POSTED BY EIZ ON THURSDAY, 19 JANUARY, 2012, 7:14 AM
GO
Gabby-Giffords.png
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.
Share |
GABBY GIFFORDS
POSTED BY EIZ ON THURSDAY, 19 JANUARY, 2012, 7:14 AM
CloseDiggRedditTumblrPermalink 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.
Times Topic: Gun ControlLeft 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.
A version of this editorial appeared in print on January 27, 2012, on page A26 of the New York
edition with the headline: Gabby Giffords’s Farewell.