Dianna M. Náñez

The Arizona Republic

It was as if she was still an Arizona congresswoman meeting and greeting constituents, handling the push and pull of politics.

She waved as the Phoenix audience clapped when she entered the room. She listened and held the hand of Jennifer Longdon, an Arizona gunshot survivor who spoke about the bullet that hit her spine and the one that pierced her fiance’s brain. And she shook hands with a boy whose mother stood nearby smiling at the pair.

Then, it was time for her to speak, something that used to come easy for the seasoned lawmaker.

After she recovered from being shot in the head during a 2011 meeting with constituents near Tucson, Gabrielle Giffords, along with her husband, Navy veteran and retired NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, spent years working to change gun laws.

Thursday, when she appeared at the Heard Museum, she made clear she remains unafraid of the political push and pull.

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Giffords told the audience she is ready to start fighting any Arizona politician who stands in the way of gun-violence prevention.

“Stopping gun violence takes courage, the courage to do what’s right, the courage of new ideas,” she said. “I’ve seen great courage when my life was on the line. Now is the time to come together to be responsible. Democrats, Republicans, everyone, we must never stop fighting.”

She kept her comments brief, but not timid.

“Fight, fight, fight,” she said. “Be bold, be courageous, the nation’s counting on you.”

Giffords and Kelly announced the launch of a group called the Arizona Coalition for Common Sense to reduce gun violence. The press conference, followed by a roundtable discussion, included gun owners, business and faith leaders and survivors of shootings and urged strategies for changing Arizona gun laws.

Giffords made headlines last month when she called on members of Congress feeling pressured by constituents, angry over President Trump’s policies, not to abandon their town-hall meetings.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, noted the gunman who attacked Giffords and killed six other people during the mass shooting as reason not to hold public meetings where he could face activists, protesters and others.

"I was shot on a Saturday morning," Giffords said in a written statement released by Americans for Responsible Solutions, the gun-control organization she and Kelly founded. "By Monday morning my offices were open to the public. Ron Barber — at my side that Saturday, who was shot multiple times, then elected to Congress in my stead — held town halls. It's what the people deserve in a representative."

Though the couple's advocacy work consistently draws media attention, they have been largely unsuccessful at changing federal gun laws. Kelly told the audience Thursday that they expect this fight to be harder under a gun-friendly Trump administration. He vowed to take their fight across the country.

“If Congress refuses to act, then, our leaders in our states need to act and that’s what this new coalition for common sense is all about,” he said.

Follow Dianna M. Náñez on Twitter: @DiannaNanez