Gabby Giffords, the former congresswoman who was gravely injured when she was shot in the head during an appearance near a Tucson supermarket in 2011, is the focus of the latest ad backing Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
The ad, titled “Gabby,” will run in Massachusetts through Tuesday, when the state’s Democrats will pick between Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. The 30-second spot foscuses on Clinton’s positions on stopping gun violence and tightening gun control laws.
“I am fed up,” Giffords says in the ad. “We have a gun violence problem. So I am voting for Hillary Clinton. She is tough. She will stand up to the gun lobby. She will fight to make our families safer. It matters.”
Clinton’s voice then endorses the ad.
Giffords, then an Arizona Democratic congresswoman, was shot in the head ago during an appearance in front of a Tucson supermarket in 2011. She barely survived and stepped down from her House seat to recover. She and her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, have become outspoken advocates for tighter gun laws. The couple have founded a political action committee, Americans for Responsible Solutions, to push their new project.
Giffords and Kelly endorsed Clinton last month and have been stumping for her across the country since then.
“Time and time again, Hillary has done and said what is right, not what is politically expedient. That’s why we are supporting her for president of the United States,” the couple said in a statement to CNN.
Clinton has made gun control a central plank in her campaign, but she has also embraced the issued because it has become a powerful political tool against Sanders, whose position on guns has long been more conservative than many Democrats.
In Atlanta on Friday, Clinton pledged that she would stand up to the gun lobby, and faulted Sanders for his positions.
“There is something so profoundly troubling about what is happening,” Clinton said about gun violence before knocking Sanders.
The new ad will air in the Boston and Springfield, Massachusetts, media markets.
