Shooting vic former Rep. GABBY GIFFORDS urges Congress to get tough on guns.
In a dramatic appeal, Giffords urged Congress on Wednesday to enact tougher curbs on guns, saying, "too many children are dying" without them.
"The time is now. You must act. Be bold, be courageous, Americans are counting on you," she told the Senate Judiciary Committee at Congress' first gun control hearing since 20 elementary school children were shot to death in Newtown, Conn., late last year.
In a grim reminder of the tragedy that befell her Giffords spoke haltingly – the result of head wounds suffered when she was shot in an attempted assassination two years ago that left six others dead.
Gabby’s hubby, former Space Shuttle commander, retired Capt. Mark Kelly, also testified.
He said the size of ammunition magazines could have made a dramatic difference when a man opened fire in Arizona two years ago.
Giffors testified that the shooter"showed up with two 33-round magazines, one of which was in his 9 millimeter. He unloaded the contents of that magazine in 15 seconds. Very quickly. It all happened very, very fast. The first bullet went into Gabby's head. Bullet number 13 went into a nine-year old girl named Christina Taylor Green….
"If he had a 10-round magazine — well, let me back up. When he tried to reload one 33-round magazine with another 33-round magazine, he dropped it. And a woman named Patricia Maisch grabbed it, and it gave bystanders a time to tackle him.
"I contend if that same thing happened when he was trying to reload one 10-round magazine with another 10-round magazine, meaning he did not have access to a high-capacity magazine, and the same thing happened, Christina Taylor Green would be alive today."
But in conflicting testimony, a top official of the National Rifle Association rejected bans on certain assault weapons and high capacity magazines as proposedby President Barack Obama and gun control advocates in Congress.
