Read Gabby Giffords' Fierce, Powerful Piece on Today's GOP Filibuster

In a New York Times’ Op-Ed entitled “A Senate in the Gun Lobby’s Grip”, Gabby Giffords’ joins Obama in unleashing hell on the Republicans (and four Democrats) who filibustered the bipartisan gun background-check proposal earlier today: “Senators say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets.”

This compromise is favored by ninety percent of Americans — NINETY PERCENT! — and yet… when it comes to the United States Senate, it appears there’s no place for common sense amongst these shameful cowards.

Giffords’ piece only gets more intense, beautiful, and upsetting from there.

She calls the Senators out:

I watch TV and read the papers like everyone else. We know what we’re going to hear: vague platitudes like “tough vote” and “complicated issue.” I was elected six times to represent southern Arizona, in the State Legislature and then in Congress. I know what a complicated issue is; I know what it feels like to take a tough vote. This was neither. These senators made their decision based on political fear and on cold calculations about the money of special interests like the National Rifle Association, which in the last election cycle spent around $25 million on contributions, lobbying and outside spending.

She speaks the truth:

Our democracy’s history is littered with names we neither remember nor celebrate — people who stood in the way of progress while protecting the powerful. On Wednesday, a number of senators voted to join that list.

And finally, she issues a call to action:

I am asking every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these senators demonstrated. I am asking for mothers to stop these lawmakers at the grocery store and tell them: You’ve lost my vote. I am asking activists to unsubscribe from these senators’ e-mail lists and to stop giving them money. I’m asking citizens to go to their offices and say: You’ve disappointed me, and there will be consequences.