On Saturday night, I went to the Kendall Square Cinema here in Cambridge to see Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down. As it turned out, I had the theatre entirely to myself. In the age of COVID, I've been in some sparsely attended movie houses but this was a first.
Mind you my singular presence does not reflect on the quality of the subject or presentation. I suspect that people going out on a Saturday night want lighter fare and that is fair. Yet despite the grim subject of gun violence in America, Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down is a largely uplifting film.
It is a miracle that Giffords survived a gunshot wound to the head which left her with significant brain damage. Beyond that there was no guarantee that Giffords would walk or talk again. Giffords is not only walking and talking she is studying for her bat mitzvah and running her own political action committee promoting gun control. Surviving was a miracle. The rest is her sheer determination to overcome struggles she knows she will have to deal with for the rest of her life and doing so with a smile.
Of course, this cannot be done without support. Giffords' greatest support comes from her husband, former astronaut and now Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly. Their marriage is one of devotion and unconditional love. The two have truly lived up to their vows of in sickness and in health and the support goes both ways. Perhaps the most compelling scene in the entire documentary was Kelly practicing his Senate maiden speech and Giffords critiquing his body language and cadence. While Giffords might never be healthy enough to hold elected office, her political instincts have not left her and will serve Kelly well.
Speaking of politics, when I decided to see the documentary I wondered how they would handle the subject of the man who killed six people and very nearly killed Giffords. At the time of the Tucson shooting, there was the claim advanced by The New York Times that the perpetrator was inspired by a map with gun crosshairs targeting Democratic controlled seats in Congress put out by Sarah Palin's political action committee. While Palin can be criticized for many things this was not one of them. The Times would belatedly issue a correction in 2017. This did not satisfy Palin who unsuccessfully brought libel litigation against The Gray Lady.
The documentary did not cast blame on Palin nor any other Republican for Giffords' shooting. To the extent the film did criticize Republicans was for their ongoing opposition to gun control legislation. The toughest criticism was reserved for Kentucky Senator Rand Paul who crassly described the parents of the children who were slaughtered at Sandy Hook Elementary School as "political props." The NRA was also targeted for both its corruption and the fallacy of "a good guy with a gun". Indeed, a good guy with a gun did come to the scene of the Tucson shooting and very nearly killed one of the people who subdued the perpetrator. Let us also consider that in a situation like this when things move so fast how can anyone, much less police can tell the good guy with a gun and the bad guy with a gun apart?
For the most part Giffords emphasized moving forward with supporting expanded background checks and red flag laws. The documentary was completed prior to Congress passing modest gun control legislation last month in the wake of mass shootings in Buffalo and in Uvalde, Texas.
Moving from the political to the personal, it is also worth noting that impact music has had in Giffords' recovery. Although speech does not come easily to Giffords, she sings nearly effortlessly as demonstrated with her rendition of the late John Denver's "Country Roads (Take Me Home)" while on her bike at the conclusion of the movie. She also retained the ability to play the French horn.
Mind you, Giffords had the good fortune of having Congressional health insurance. Most gunshot victims do not have access to the kind of care that Giffords received though Giffords and Kelly have long supported expanding healthcare access to all Americans. Still, Giffords' main objective is preventing gun violence from happening in the first place. This is her life's work and perhaps it is the reason she was spared.
If you did not get the chance to see Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down, it will air on CNN later this year.
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