Strange but true: getting shot in the head will make a person want to defeat political candidates who oppose gun control laws. Actually, getting shot in the head is usually fatal. But if you’re one of the few cranial gunshot victims lucky enough to both survive getting shot in the head, and retain the ability to communicate with others, you might find yourself expressing some strong views about gun politics.

The editors of the Arizona Republic came in for a lot of mockery along these lines after they published an article criticizing former Representative, and shooting victim, Gabby Giffords, whose advocacy group, Americans for Responsible Solutions, has produced extremely provocative ads attacking office seekers who oppose even modest gun safety laws—like this one targeting Republican congressional candidate Martha McSally.

The Republic's argument is weak on its own, but they chose to undermine it further with occasional injections of astonishing condescension. “Gabby Giffords never resorted to the kind of squalid campaigning this ad represents,” the editors wrote. “So concerned was she about the breakdown of civility in politics that only a week before her own shooting, she was at a New Year's Renaissance Weekend retreat expressing her desire to improve it…. Perhaps the Tucson shooting changed Gabby Giffords.”

Perhaps! And perhaps I can settle this controversy. Here’s Gabby Giffords only a day before the Tucson shooting—so, a few days after the Renaissance Weekend.

And here she is a year later, announcing that she would resign from Congress.