DISGUSTING: Moms Demand Supporter Lies About Tucson Shooting of Gabby Giffords

A Glock 19 with an extended 31-round magazine, similar to the one used by the killer. (image via AZFamily)

Moms Demand Action supporter Mary Reed, a survivor of the Tucson shooting that targeted then-Representative Gabby Giffords, lied about the assassination attempt in an attempt to help the Bloomberg-funded gun control group bully the nation’s largest grocery chain into adopting a policy banning the open carry of firearms in their stores, including the lawful holstered carry of handguns.

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Reed made the following statement in an editorial to Cincinnati.com:

Before the day I was forced to use my body to shield my 17-year-old daughter from bullets flying outside a Safeway, I hadn’t thought much about the dangers of open carry at grocery stores.

I’m a gun owner. I was raised around guns. And, I respect them. But I can tell you firsthand that is impossible to tell the difference between someone who is open carrying a gun to make a political statement and someone who is preparing to take your life.

On January 8, 2011, a gunman tried to assassinate U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The gunman took a few steps out of the grocery store and began shooting in the parking lot. It took only 22 seconds to kill six people, including 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, and injure another 13. I was shot three times: once in each arm, and finally in the back.

The shooting was front and center on national news for weeks, but something that you may not know is that for about 15 minutes before the gunman in Tucson fired into a crowd and at a member of Congress, he openly carried his weapons through the aisles of a grocery store for all to see. This is behavior that Kroger considers acceptable inside its stores.

Reed’s statement—like so many statements made by Moms Demand Action—is categorically false.

Contemporary news accounts show that the assassin* interacted with both Safeway staff and Giffords staff members prior to to shooting, and no one saw the assassin in the possession of the firearm that he used until he raised to shoot Representative Giffords.

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This would have been remarkable, as the killer used a Glock 19 with an extended 31-round magazine that wold have been highly visible if not very carefully concealed.

A Glock 19 with an extended 31-round magazine, similar to the one used by the killer. (image via AZFamily)
A Glock 19 with an extended magazine, similar to the one used by the killer. (image via AZFamily)

Neither Safeway staff nor the taxi driver who brought the killer to the store, nor any other witnesses, nor the store’s internal or external security cameras, saw the firearm until the murderer was about to open fire.

A contemporary account from the New York Times describes how the killer was captured on Safeway store video both inside and outside the store. His pistol was not seen on video until he was outside the store,  holding it against his leg up until the moment that he rapidly approached and shot Rep. Giffords at a range of several feet.

Another Moms Demand supporter, Jennifer Longdon, was similarly caught in another apparent lie earlier this year.

 

* Bearing Arms does not publish the names of mass killers or school killers.

 

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