The Attempted Assassination Of Gabby Giffords, A Year Later

It's important to remember as we look back on this seminal moment in our politics that several people were killed, innocent bystanders who had committed the sin of being at an district event with the Congresswoman.

U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, wounded in a deadly mass shooting on January 8 last year, visited a Tucson area park on Saturday as survivors and residents prepared for the somber anniversary on Sunday.


A gunman toting a semiautomatic pistol pumped bullet after bullet into a crowd gathered for a congressional outreach event outside a Tucson supermarket a year ago.

Six people were killed and 13 wounded, including Giffords, who was shot through the head and has been recovering at a hospital in Houston, Texas.

With her husband retired astronaut Mark Kelly at her side, Giffords walked a desert trail outside Tucson named for her slain aide Gabe Zimmerman, her office said, stopping briefly to talk to hikers.

Her appearance, during only her fourth visit to the city since the shooting, came as survivors and residents of this close-knit city came together for walks, story-telling sessions and outdoor festivals ahead of the anniversary of the shooting on Sunday.

Bells across Tuscon rang in remembrance today, and I don't think the city will ever forget.  We shouldn't either.  We shouldn't forget what led to this tragedy and exactly how it was allowed to happen.  We shouldn't forget the six who died, including a 9-year-old girl who wanted to meet her Congresswoman.  We shouldn't forget that these horrible things can and will happen, but that the circumstances that led to this awful event could have and should have been prevented at a number of points along the way.

And we shouldn't forget that the new "austerity politics" where government cannot, should not, and will not assist the American people under the next GOP administration, an administration that will cut services even more, comes at a price.  Sometimes that price is bloody.