Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) Shot in Head at Tucson Campaign Event

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was shot in the head and severely wounded by a gunman who ran up to her at a campaign event in a Tucson supermarket parking lot and started shooting. Several others were wounded in the attack and one of Giffords’ aides was reportedly killed. (Update: The Washington Post is reporting that 6 people were killed in the attack including a federal judge; and that 9 people, including a child, were taken to a local medical center with critical or serious injuries.)

In November, the 40-year-old Giffords narrowly edged out a tea party favorite to win a third term representing Arizona’s 8th District.

In August of 2009, Giffords’ staff called the police after someone at an earlier Congress on Your Corner event in a Safeway parking lot dropped a gun. They were nervous because Giffords, like many Democratic representatives, had received threats over her support of health care reform. The person who dropped the gun turned out to have been carrying it legally.

Giffords’ office was vandalized in 2010 after she voted for health care reform.

Her name appeared on Sarah Palin’s “Target List,” a fundraising map with crosshairs over the districts of representatives who voted for health care reform.

[Photo credit: Freedom To Marry, Creative Commons.]