JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
This month marks 15 years since everything changed for then Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. That was when a gunman opened fire at a constituent event she was holding in her district. Nineteen people were shot, including Giffords. Six people were killed. The gunman shot Giffords in the head at point-blank range. Trauma surgeon Peter Rhee explained the seriousness of Gifford's injury two days after.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PETER RHEE: It wasn't a little grazing wound through the brain. This was a devastating wound that traveled the entire length of the brain on the left side.
SUMMERS: The shooting left Giffords with a traumatic brain injury that affects her speech and left her paralyzed on one side.
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS: What, what, what and chicken, chicken, chicken.
EMMA BROWN: Those were the only two words that she could say.
SUMMERS: What and chicken.
BROWN: Yeah. No one knows why, but those were the two words that she had when she first woke up, and she had to rebuild her whole language and vocabulary from there, and her recovery is an ongoing fight.
SUMMERS: That is Emma Brown, the executive director of GIFFORDS, the gun violence prevention organization the former congresswoman established after the attack. The women work together to reduce the rate of gun violence in the United States.
GIFFORDS: I'm so busy - a lot of Zoom calls, work, work, work, yoga twice a week, French horn, Spanish lessons, biking, the gym, pool therapy. And I'm traveling a lot - 60% on the road.
BROWN: Yeah. I can barely keep up with her - 60% travel. So Gabby was shot 15 years ago, and, you know, when she was first shot, she was in a coma, and she was in the hospital for many months.
SUMMERS: Giffords and Brown stopped by NPR's studios last week to reflect on the 15th anniversary of the shooting and the life of advocacy Giffords has built since then. Because of Gifford's aphasia, we agreed to ask questions in a specific way in order to maximize her ability to answer. And then when needed, following up and asking additional questions of her own. And sometimes, over the course of our 20-minute interview, the questions I asked needed clarification. Like, when I asked Giffords if she views this moment in our country as more dangerous than 15 years ago when she was shot.
BROWN: So she's asking about if today the world is more dangerous...
GIFFORDS: Yeah.
BROWN: ...Than it was...
GIFFORDS: Yeah. Yeah.
BROWN: ...In 2011.
GIFFORDS: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
BROWN: And I think...
GIFFORDS: (Laughter).
BROWN: ...We do think it's more dangerous, right? We know that.
GIFFORDS: Dividing the country. Dividing the country. It's hard.
BROWN: Yeah.
SUMMERS: Giffords offered a simple solution for addressing the division and the rhetoric that flows from that.
GIFFORDS: Hope, hope, hope.
BROWN: Yeah.
GIFFORDS: A lot of hope.
BROWN: Yeah. Yeah. You know, when we think about political violence and what causes political violence, there's a lot of attention on the rhetoric, and that's important, you know? Polarized rhetoric, leaders who inflame divisions instead of tamp them down, all of that contributes to an environment where you see the kind of political violence that we're seeing right now. But I think we really believe that political violence comes at the intersection of two things - the intensified rhetoric, heated rhetoric and easy access to guns.
SUMMERS: But there's nothing simple about the strategy that Giffords and Brown use to try to affect real change when it comes to gun laws.
GIFFORDS: Mississippi, no bueno. California, A's.
BROWN: Gabby's making the point that, you know, when we look at states, individual states, it is the case that states with stronger gun laws have far fewer people dying in them, have far fewer school shootings, less neighborhood violence. You're contrasting Mississippi and Alabama, which have some of the weakest gun laws in the country, with states like California and New York, which have some of the strongest. And, of course, you know, we still see major incidents of violence in California and New York because we have really weak federal laws.
SUMMERS: Gifford's organization has been focused on changing gun laws at the state level. Brown explained what the group views as its successes.
BROWN: It is not the case that we don't know what the solutions are to this issue, right? We know what the solutions are. We know that they work. In California, we passed one of the first red flag laws in the country's history, and you have to look at that and look at the data and know that there are lives being saved.
GIFFORDS: We can't wait for Congress to act. We will win in the states and hold the gun industry accountable.
SUMMERS: But despite Gifford's intense commitment to change and the work her organization does day in, day out, gun violence remains a persistent and deadly problem. It made me wonder. Does she ever lose faith?
Do you ever want to give up?
GIFFORDS: No way, Jose. Move ahead, to not look back. I hope others are inspired to keep moving forward, no matter what.
SUMMERS: That was former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, along with Emma Brown, executive director of GIFFORDS. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
