Giffords, Gabrielle (1970-…), an Arizona Democrat, was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2012. On Jan. 8, 2011, Giffords became the target of an assassination attempt. A shooter opened fire at a political event Giffords hosted outside a grocery store in Tucson, Arizona. The gunman shot 19 people. He killed federal judge John M. Roll and 5 others. Giffords survived a gunshot wound to the head.
Immediately after the shooting, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department arrested Jared Lee Loughner, the accused shooter, and turned him over to federal custody. In August 2012, Loughner pleaded guilty to 19 counts, including murder and attempted murder. In November, a federal judge sentenced Loughner to seven consecutive life sentences, plus 140 years, in federal prison.
Gabrielle Dee Giffords was born in Tucson on June 8, 1970. She received a bachelor’s degree in sociology and Latin American history from Scripps College in 1993. In 1993 and 1994, Giffords studied in Chihuahua, Mexico, on a Fulbright scholarship. She earned a master’s degree in regional planning from Cornell University in 1996. From 1996 to 2000, Giffords served as president of her family’s tire and automotive business in Tucson. In 2000, she founded a real estate management firm. She ran the business until 2007.
Giffords won election to the Arizona House of Representatives in 2000. She served from 2001 to 2003. In 2002, she became the youngest woman elected to Arizona’s state Senate. She served there from 2003 to 2005. In 2006, Giffords won election to the U.S. House of Representatives. She took office in 2007, representing a district in southeastern Arizona. That same year, she married the American astronaut Mark E. Kelly, who piloted the space shuttles Endeavour and Discovery.
As a congresswoman, Giffords supported immigration reform and solar energy projects. She became a member of several House committees, including the Armed Services Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee, and the Science and Technology Committee. Giffords resigned from the House in January 2012 to focus on recovering from being shot the year before.
In January 2013, Giffords and her husband launched Americans for Responsible Solutions, a group that sought legislative reforms to reduce gun violence and prevent mass shootings. In 2016, Americans for Responsible Solutions joined with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence to create a new gun-violence prevention organization simply called Giffords. In 2020, Kelly won a special election to the U.S. Senate to serve the last two years of the term of Senator John McCain, who had died. In 2022, Kelly won election to a full six-year term.
See also Tucson shooting of 2011.
