‘A Grave Tragedy for Our Nation.’ Gabby Giffords Reflects on Las Vegas Shooting

Former Representative Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head in 2011 outside a constituent meeting in Tucson, Ariz. in an assassination attempt while she was meeting with voters, has described the Las Vegas shooting in which 58 people were killed and 515 were injured as “a grave tragedy for our nation.”

“My heart is with the victims, their families and friends, and the law enforcement officers who risked their lives to save others,” the former Arizona Congresswoman wrote on Twitter Monday.

Giffords has long been an advocate for gun control; she and her husband Mark Kelly, a retired American astronaut, launched a political action committee called Americans for Responsible Solutions in Jan. 2013. Less than one week ago she took to social media to condemn Republican candidate Roy Moore for pulling out a gun at an Alabama campaign rally.

A lone gunman, subsequently identified by authorities as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, opened fire from his hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino onto the Route 91 Harvest country music festival.

The death toll makes the massacre the deadliest shooting in U.S. history.