Here we are, roughly a year or so since a gunman open fire at a meet and greet Rep Gabrielle Giffords was having with her constituents in her district in Arizona. Rep Gifford would end up being shot in the head during the onslaught and while she survived the attempt on her life, her long process of recovery has left her incapable of performing the duties required of her office, so she has stepped down from her Congressional seat. So how would you honor someone who was shot in the head? Well, the United States Navy thinks it will be cool to name a gun boat after her. Can I possibly be the only person who finds this just the slightest bit tacky?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Our inspiration (the title for this blog)
Picture Window theme. Powered by Blogger.
USS Gabrielle Giffords
ReplyDeletewith Hillary, after...
As a seaman, I think it's great to name a boat after her - a real honor
touches the heart...
I guess I just have a hard time with the Navy naming a craft armed with guns after a a person who is recovering from being shot.
ReplyDeleteWhile it's an honor to name a ship after someone it does seem a bit odd. Then again she's from Arizona where it's ok to walk the streets armed and many do because they can. It was an incident waiting to happen. So maybe she still supports peoples ability to walk around with a gun everywhere and when the whim strikes pull it out and shoot. In which case a gunship is just about par for the course.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I am just misremembering things, but usually those people who have ships named after them after being victims of a violent act are named posthumously (Kennedy, Lincoln both come to mind). I understand the idea behind naming a ship after someone, but Giffords despite all of the attention she received, was pretty much a no name congresswoman prior to that fateful day last year to anyone outside of her district and those to which being a political junkie is par for the course, so to name a ship after her seems to me to be more as a result of the shooting itself than anything she actually accomplished. I just haven't been able to wrap my head around the notion of honoring a victim of senseless violence by naming a weapon after them.
ReplyDeleteTrue. She wasn't a big national name. She did make it on Sarah Palin's hit list so to speak prior to the shooting which many think made the Uncle Fester look a like shoot her. I really don't get it either. At least Brady had a gun law named after him, not a gun.
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama signed into law Friday a final bill authored by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was wounded in an Arizona shooting rampage a year ago.
ReplyDeleteGiffords took part in the signing ceremony at the White House. She resigned from Congress last month as she continues to recover from a gunshot wound to the head.
The legislation increases the penalties for using ultra-light aircraft when smuggling drugs into the country. The small, single-seat planes are an increasingly favored tool that smugglers use to fly at night and then release their haul without detection.
Obama said he told Giffords that he expected to see more of her in the months and years to come.
"I'm confident that, while this legislation may have been her last act as a congresswoman, it will not be her last act of public service," Obama said in a statement released by the White House.
Giffords stepped down on the day the House passed her bill by a vote of 428-0.