Gabby Giffords Furious: Former Congresswoman Blasts Senators For Voting Down Gun Bill

After a new gun bill-proposed West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Machin and Pennsylvania Republican Senator Pat Toomey— was voted down in the United States Senate on Thursday, former congresswoman Gabby Giffords let her opinion be heard Friday, according to USA Today.

She began her strongly-worded op-ed piece in the New York Times:

“SENATORS say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them.”

A major piece of the gun control agreement was the installment for background checks for guns bought at gun shows and online. The bill was voted down 54-46, according to Think Progress.

Since being shot by gunman Jared Loughner in 2011, Giffords has been a strong supporter of stricter gun laws. She suffered severe injuries and was hospitalized for an extended period of time.

"Speaking is physically difficult for me. But my feelings are clear: I'm furious," Giffords wrote. "I will not rest until we have righted the wrong these senators have done, and until we have changed our laws so we can look parents in the face and say: We are trying to keep our children safe."

In an effort to drive the call for strict gun control, Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly created the super PAC, Americans for Responsible Solutions. Giffords and Kelly stood with President Barack Obama Wednesday, as he condemned the bill’s failure.

"This was a pretty shameful day for Washington. But this effort is not over," Obama said, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In her piece, she vowed that the fight against guns would continue.

“This defeat is only the latest chapter of what I’ve always known would be a long, hard haul. Our democracy’s history is littered with names we neither remember nor celebrate — people who stood in the way of progress while protecting the powerful. On Wednesday, a number of senators voted to join that list.”