Gabrielle Giffords

Gabrielle Giffords (March 2010)

Gabrielle Dee "Gabby" Giffords (born June 8, 1970 in Tucson , Arizona ) is an American politician . From 2007 to January 25, 2012, the Democrat represented the eighth congressional electoral district of the state of Arizona in the US House of Representatives .

On January 8, 2011, she was critically injured in an assassination attempt on her person that resulted in six deaths.

Family and education

Giffords was born in Tucson, Arizona to Spencer and Gloria Giffords. She attended to 1988 the local University High School , made in 1993 her bachelor's degree at Scripps College in Claremont , California in Latin American history and sociology and studied with a Fulbright scholarship a year in the Mexican Chihuahua . In 1996 she earned a master's degree in regional planning from Cornell University in Ithaca , New York .

Gifford's paternal grandfather, Akiba Hornstein, son of a Lithuanian rabbi , settled in Arizona in the 1940s, where he changed his name and started the family business "El Campo Tire", which sold automobile tires. Giffords grew up mixed denominationally, her father is Jewish, the mother is a member of the Christian Science Church . She herself has publicly professed Judaism since 2001 and is a member of a Jewish reform community , the Congregation Chaverim in Tucson, and thus also the first Jewish congresswoman in Arizona.

She has been married since 2007 to Mark E. Kelly , a military pilot and astronaut who works for NASA and has been involved in several space shuttle missions.

Profession and Politics

Until 1996 Giffords worked for the service company PricewaterhouseCoopers in New York . She returned to Tucson in 1996 and took over running her family's auto tire business. In 2000 she sold it to Goodyear and then started her own investment firm.

She had joined the Republican Party when she was 18 . In 1999 she resigned because of their conservative social positions and joined the Democratic Party . A year later she was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives , in 2002 to the Arizona Senate, to which she was the youngest female member in its history until 2005.

Giffords is a member of the New Democrat Coalition and belongs to the so-called Blue Dog Coalition of the Democratic Party, which unites conservative Democrats. She is a member of the Armed Forces Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Science and Technology Committee. She campaigns for renewable energies , especially solar energy , and for the right to possession of weapons for private individuals . She supports the US military and the US war effort in Afghanistan , but was against the Iraq war and demanded the withdrawal of troops, but voted in favor of an increase in the military budget. Giffords actively supported US President Barack Obama's healthcare reform and advocates embryonic stem cell research .

In the 2006 congressional elections , Giffords was elected to the eighth district of Arizona with 54% of the vote in the US House of Representatives in Washington . When she was re-elected in 2008 she won against the Republican candidate with 56.2%. In the 2010 elections she was re-elected with 49% of the vote and a majority of around 4,000 votes. Her opponent, Republican Jesse Kelly, a candidate for the Tea Party movement , received 47% of the vote.

Giffords was one of the 20 Democratic MPs whose re-election Sarah Palin's political action committee sought to prevent. On a map of the United States, Palin had marked the relevant constituencies with crosshairs as they appear in the telescopic sight of firearms . Giffords had commented on Palin's crosshairs at the time with the words: "If you do something like this, you have to know that it can have consequences." Giffords was one of only two of the candidates so attacked by the Tea Party movement who were re-elected.

attack

→ Main article : Tucson assassination attempt

On January 8, 2011, Giffords held a public “Congress on Your Corner” in front of a supermarket in Casas Adobes , a suburb of Tucson. The 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner shot the politician at close range in the head and then at other people. Giffords survived the assassination with life-threatening injuries. Six people died, including a nine-year-old girl and federal judge John McCarthy Roll . In addition to Giffords, 13 other people were injured. The perpetrator was overwhelmed by those present and taken into custody by the police.

Recovery and continued commitment

Gabrielle Giffords on her return to the House of Representatives on August 1, 2011

Giffords participated in the US President's State of the Union speech in January 2012.

Giffords was operated on by a military doctor at Tucson City Hospital 38 minutes after he was shot in the head. Part of the top of her skull was removed to make way for a swelling of the brain . Because the bullet had a slow muzzle velocity and did not penetrate central areas of the brain, it survived. She was sedated but was able to obey simple commands when occasionally awakening, such as lifting a finger and moving both arms. On January 11th she was able to breathe on her own again. A US Army neurologist called in said that due to the favorable course of the firing channel, she had a 50 percent chance of maintaining her mobility. Experts expected their full recovery within a year or more.

On January 12, shortly after a visit from US President Barack Obama, Giffords opened her eyes for the first time. On January 17, a damaged eye socket where the bullet leaked was surgically repaired. She could use both halves of her body and signal that she could hear and see visitors. On January 21, she was transferred to a rehabilitation center in Houston, Texas, where she received physical therapy. There she regained her ability to speak by February 9th. In June 2011 she was released from inpatient treatment.

On August 1, 2011, Giffords reappeared in Congress for the first time since the attack and took part in the House of Representatives vote on the package of measures to overcome the budget crisis.

Her memoirs appeared in November 2011 under the title Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope.

On January 22, 2012, Giffords announced her resignation as Congressman for the following week. She wanted to focus on her recovery. She did not rule out a return to politics. On January 25, one day after attending the Congressional session on the President's State of the Union Address , she resigned from the House of Representatives. The by-election for her mandate on June 13, 2012 won her former staff member Ron Barber , who was also seriously injured in the attack.

On September 6, 2012 Giffords took part in the final day of the Democratic National Convention and spoke there on stage accompanied by Debbie Wasserman Schultz , the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of Allegiance .

Exactly two years after the attack, Giffords founded a campaign for stricter gun laws on January 8, 2013, specifically for a ban on selling guns to criminals. The organization that she leads with her husband wants to build a counter-position to the lobby organization National Rifle Association under the name Americans for Responsible Solutions . James Brady and his wife founded a similar organization after he was critically injured in an assassination attempt by US President Ronald Reagan in 1981 .

Honors

The United States Navy named in February 2012, a Littoral Combat Ship the Independence class , the USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS-10) , after her. The ship is the sixteenth ship in the US Navy to be named after a woman and the thirteenth to be named after a living person.

Works

• with Mark Kelly and Jeffrey Zaslow : Gabby. A Story of Courage and Hope. Scribner, New York NY 2011, ISBN 978-1-4516-6106-4 .

Web links

Commons : Gabrielle Giffords  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

 Wikinews: Assassination of US Congressman Gabrielle Giffords killed several people  - News

• Gabrielle Giffords' biography. ( Memento from July 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
• Gabrielle Giffords in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Stephanie Innes: Giffords is 1st female Jew elected from Ariz. . Arizona Daily Star, March 4, 2007, accessed January 10, 2011
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Matt Schudel: Gabrielle Giffords: Congresswoman seen as rising Democratic star . The Washington Post , January 8, 2011, accessed January 10, 2011
3. ↑ Ron Kampeas: Giffords known for her openness and Judaism ( Memento of the original from January 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . JTA, Jewish Journal, January 9, 2011, accessed January 10, 2011 
4. ↑ ^{a b} Attack victim Gabrielle Giffords: In the crosshairs of hatred . Stern.de , January 10, 2011, accessed February 25, 2011
5. ↑ ^{a b c} James Rowley: Gabrielle Giffords, Former Republican, Became Democrat Who Defies Labels. In: Bloomberg News. January 10, 2011, accessed November 10, 2012 .  
6. ↑ Kasie Hunt: Top 10 'Tea Party' Candidates to Watch , AZCentral.com, September 21, 2010, accessed February 25, 2011
7. ↑ Assassination attempt in Arizona: In the crosshairs of Sarah Palin Stern.de, January 9, 2011, accessed on February 25, 2011
8. ↑ Craig Kanalley: Jared Lee Loughner Identified As Gabrielle Gifford's Shooter . The Huffington Post, January 8, 2011, accessed January 9, 2011
9. ^ Rep. Giffords shot, judge and 5 others killed at Tucson event . Arizona Daily Star, January 8, 2011, accessed January 9, 2011
10. ↑ Reports: Judge Roll Received Death Threats cbsnews.com, January 8, 2011, accessed January 9, 2011
11. ^ Marc Lacey: Evidence Points to Methodical Planning . The New York Times, January 9, 2011, accessed January 10, 2011
12. ↑ Holger Dambeck (Der Spiegel, January 10, 2011): Attack Victims: How Doctors Fight For Gabrielle Giffords' Life
13. ↑ MSNBC, Jan. 11, 2011: Doctor: Giffords has '101 percent chance' of surviving
14. ↑ David Brown (The Washington Post, January 11, 2011): Bullet path may decide Giffords's fate
15. ↑ Elizabeth Landau (CNN, Jan. 11, 2011): Giffords in key period after brain injury
16. ↑ CBS News, Jan. 12, 2011: Obama: Rep. Gifford's "Opened Her Eyes" Today
17. ↑ CNN, January 17, 2011: Giffords undergoes successful operation to repair eye socket
18. ↑ Der Spiegel, Jan. 17, 2011: Tucson Bloodbath: Rep. Giffords on the Mend
19. ^ CNN, Jan. 21, 2011: Giffords arrives in Houston
20. ↑ Der Spiegel, February 9, 2011: Gabrielle Giffords: Injured US MPs can speak again
21. ↑ Budget dispute: House of Representatives approves savings compromise , Spiegel Online, August 2, 2011, accessed on August 2, 2011
22. ↑ An agonizing struggle back to life. In: Spiegel Online from November 15, 2011
23. ↑ Gifford's assassination victim gives up congress post. In: Spiegel Online, January 22, 2012
24. ↑ Gabrielle Giffords leads emotional pledge at DNC , usatoday.com, September 6, 2012, accessed September 12, 2012
25. ↑ Americans for Responsible Solutions, Solutions ( Memento of the original from April 3, 2013) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
26. ↑ Spiegel online: Giffords starts campaign against US gun lobby , January 8, 2013
27. ↑ US Navy: Navy Names Littoral Combat Ship Gabrielle Giffords