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title: Gabby Gifford on Gun Control: What is Congress Afraid Of?
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* [Politics](/section/politics/)

# Gabby Giffords Pushes Gun Background Checks for State of the Union

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by 

[TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/)

Jan 27, 2014 10:29 PM UTC

by 

[TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/)

Jan 27, 2014 10:29 PM UTC

Former Rep. Gabby Giffords is renewing her call for Washington to enact universal gun background checks in a new ad ahead of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night.

“What is Congress afraid of?” Giffords, the Arizona Democrat who survived a shooting in Tuscon in 2011, says in the ad.

“Congress is afraid of the gun lobby,” Giffords says. “Tell Washington it’s too dangerous to wait.”

The is set to run on on CNN and MSNBC before and after Obama’s speech, the [Associated Press](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/giffords-dangerous-wait-gun-control-22255842) reports. A bill expanding background checks failed to advance in the Senate last year, even in the wake of the massacre of 20 children in a school shooting in Connecticut in late 2012\. The ad is paid for by Americans For Responsible Solutions, the super PAC founded by Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly.

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