What I've Learned - Gabby Giffords

Activist, Former Congresswoman, 52, Tucson

- By Mark Warren

__ I LIKED TO GO HUNTING WITH MY PARENTS. I’m not against guns. I still own guns even today. Safely, of course.

__ I DON’T THINK OF MY ASSAILANT. He took so much away from me, and even more away from the families of the six people he murdered. At Jared Lee Loughner’s sentencing hearing, my husband [former astronaut and current U. S. senator Mark Kelly] told him, “You have decades upon decades to contemplate what you did. But after today, after this moment, here and now, Gabby and I are done thinking about you.”

__ I’D RATHER SPEND MY ENERGY on channeling that pain into purpose than giving him another ounce of myself.

__ I THINK OF FORGIVENESS as tied to—but distinct from—acceptance.

__ FORTY-FIVE THOUSAND AMERICANS died from gun violence in 2020, and many more sustained life-altering injuries, like I did in 2011. Do I think it’s realistic or fair to ask the families of those forty-five thousand Americans to forgive the person who stole their loved one from them? No. And same for those who were shot and survived.

__ SAME FOR POLITICIANS who refuse to act on gun violence.

__ EVERYTHING I LEARNED ABOUT POLITICS, I learned from mucking horse stalls as a girl.

__ I RODE HORSES A LOT growing up. The best lesson I ever got from my parents was to get back in the saddle when I fell off.