Her mind, though, is unaffected. She is a Fulbright scholar who was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives at 30, and then to the state senate at 32, and then to Congress four years later. In January 2013, less than a month after Sandy Hook, Giffords and her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, began a new life together as gun safety advocates, launching the nonprofit organization now known as Giffords. Today, it works to shepherd gun safety legislation through Congress and state legislatures, and runs a political action committee that backs pro-gun safety politicians. (Also, when Republican legislators drop her name to justify their refusal to meet with constituents about repealing the Affordable Care Act, Giffords is happy to take a quick break from her work to call out their cowardice.)

As the 2018 midterms approach, I spoke with Giffords and Kelly about why they believe America’s gun safety debate is finally changing for the better; how they’ve learned to act as an effective counterweight to the National Rifle Association, especially under unified Republican government; and what they’ve done to repair their own lives, even as they try and help save others. To conduct this interview, I first spoke with Kelly by phone; because of Giffords’ difficulties with speaking, she and I traded emails over a six-week period this fall, as the pair traveled the country to campaign alongside Democratic candidates for office.

Some Republicans, too, actually. But we’ll get there.

GQ: What evidence do you see that gun safety is becoming a more powerful galvanizing force than gun rights? The Second Amendment has long been an issue that Republicans used to win elections. Why is it becoming a Democratic issue, too?

Gabby Giffords: It’s pretty simple: Americans are fed up. Too many people are scared of getting shot, and losing loved ones, and seeing their children traumatized. Schools, churches, offices, concerts, our streets—no place where we gather has escaped the gun violence epidemic. And shooting after shooting, we watch as the people we elect to protect us do nothing to stop it.

Mark Kelly: Something like half of the mass shootings in our country's 242-year history have occurred in the past 10 years. After Orlando, Vegas happened a year later. Then Sutherland Springs. Then Parkland. That wears on people. They get tired of it. And it gets their attention.

Giffords: The idea that we can’t keep kids safe in school or in their neighborhoods represents a broad, devastating moral failure. And the consequences have been enormous: Every day, nearly 100 lives are lost to gun violence. No other developed nation in the world has this problem. All this has prompted Americans to ask themselves: How did we get here? How did we get to a place where kids say active shooter drills are normal?

How would you answer that question? How did we get here?

Giffords: For a long time, the gun lobby’s power in Washington went unchallenged. They poured money into electing politicians who were more concerned with getting a check then they were with keeping their constituents safe.

The result is what you’d expect when you don’t do anything to fight an epidemic: It claims more victims. Federal funds didn’t go towards studying gun violence, thanks to restrictions enacted with the gun lobby’s backing. And actions we could take to address it—to save lives—have not been passed, because Congress hasn’t yet been willing to stand up their demands.

Kelly: 36,000 people die of gun violence every year, and there are forces who want us to think this is normal. But the public is smarter than that. When you show people the data, they get it. They stop buying the bullshit they hear elsewhere.