Brave shoot survivor speaks up for hil
PHILADELPHIA — Victims of violence, including shooting rampage survivor and former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, issued passionate pleas on gun safety legislation Wednesday at the Democratic National Convention.
The program, which featured those who survived attacks in Orlando and Charleston, S.C., and the daughter of the principal murdered in Newtown brought a hush to the audience as they delivered broadsides against the Republicans standing by the National Rifle Association.
Erica Smegielski, whose mother, Dawn Hochsprung, was the principal murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary school in 2012, ripped into the gun lobby while calling for support for Clinton.
“I’m here alone without my mother while too many politicians cower behind the gun lobby instead of standing with American families. We don’t need another Charleston or San Bernardino or Dallas,” she said, listing the scenes of gun violence.
And Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman who survived a bullet to the head in 2011 amid a shooting that killed six people and has led the charge for modest gun reforms ever since, took the stage to call for support for Clinton.
“Hillary is tough. Hillary is courageous. She will fight to make our families safer. In the White House, she will stand up to the gun lobby. That’s why I’m voting for Hillary,” said Giffords, whose speaking ability was much improved from her previous public appearances.
“Speaking is difficult for me. But come January, I want to say these two words: ‘Madam President,’ ” she concluded, pumping her fist as the crowd rose to its feet in the Wells Fargo Center.
Her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, said before he introduced Giffords, “Just as Hillary is prepared to defeat ISIS, advance our values and protect our freedoms, Hillary is ready to take on one of our country’s greatest moral issues here at home, and that is the gun violence that is tearing so many of our communities apart.”
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