Giffords hits the road for stronger gun regs

Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) is embarking on a national tour to push for more stringent state and federal firearm regulation ahead of the November midterms. 

Giffords’s latest campaign will take her from Maine to Washington state, four years after she was nearly killed in a shooting that claimed six lives in Tucson, Arizona. Her recovery has involved extensive physical therapy and painstaking efforts to regain her speech.

Now, Giffords will lend her voice at events in Arizona, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington state, where she will call for strengthened gun restrictions that she says will combat a scourge of violence against women.

“The number of women dying from gun violence has become a national shame,” said Giffords, a gun owner. “That’s why gun violence is a women’s issue.”

Women in the United States are 11 times more likely to be murdered with a firearm than women in other developed countries, and women victims of domestic violence are five times more likely to be killed if their abuser has a gun, according to federal data.

Giffords, who formed the gun control group Americans for Responsible Solutions after her shooting, is hitting the national circuit weeks ahead of Election Day. While gun control legislation is stalled in Congress, groups on both sides of the issue have poured millions of dollars into federal races in hopes of influencing contests that could decide control of the Senate.

Giffords will press for expanded background checks, restrictions designed to keep stalkers and domestic violence offenders from getting easy access to guns and a greater federal emphasis on resources and training to address the issue.

“Leaders from across the country — Republicans and Democrats — must come together and help make women safer from gun violence,” she said. “It is time to act. Women’s lives are at stake.”