Gabrielle Giffords: Quotes about people

“We're in Sarah Palin's 'targeted' list, but the thing is that the way she has it depicted, we're in the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they've got to realize that there are consequences to that action.”

Gabrielle Giffords

After experiencing vandalism directed at her congressional office in 2010 — The Guardian, US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shot as six die in Arizona massacre, Ben Quinn and Paul Gallagher, January 9, 2011, Guardian News and Media Limited, 2010-01-10 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/08/gabrielle-giffords-shot-tucson-arizona,

People , Way

“My position is to listen to my constituents, learn from the best information available and ultimately make sound, rational decisions that are going to be beneficial to the people of the 8th Congressional District.”

Gabrielle Giffords

On her political positions during campaign — [Stephanie Innes, Giffords: Too soon to settle on a plan for health care, The Arizona Daily Star, August 11, 2009, A1, Arizona]

People , Decision , Learning

“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 made it harder for criminals and people with dangerous mental illnesses to get hold of deadly firearms — a bill that could prevent future tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., Blacksburg, Va., and too many communities to count.”

Gabrielle Giffords

A Senate in the Gun Lobby’s Grip, The New York Times, 2013-04-18, April 17, 2013 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/opinion/a-senate-in-the-gun-lobbys-grip.html?hp&_r=0,

Love , Children , People , Fear

“This defeat is only the latest chapter of what I’ve always known would be a long, hard haul. Our democracy’s history is littered with names we neither remember nor celebrate — people who stood in the way of progress while protecting the powerful. On Wednesday, a number of senators voted to join that list. Mark my words: if we cannot make our communities safer with the Congress we have now, we will use every means available to make sure we have a different Congress, one that puts communities’ interests ahead of the gun lobby’s. To do nothing while others are in danger is not the American way.”

Gabrielle Giffords

A Senate in the Gun Lobby’s Grip, The New York Times, 2013-04-18, April 17, 2013 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/opinion/a-senate-in-the-gun-lobbys-grip.html?hp&_r=0,

People , Way , Democracy , History