'I’m not going to be a Gabby Giffords': Congressman draws gun in meeting with constituents
Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., pulled out his loaded .38-caliber handgun and placed it on a table for several minutes while making a point about gun rights during a meeting with constituents Friday.Â
“I’m not going to be a Gabby Giffords,” Norman said, during the “coffee with constituents” meeting at a Rock Hill, S.C., restaurant. Giffords, a former Arizona congresswoman, was shot outside a grocery store during a constituent gathering in 2011.
“I don’t mind dying, but whoever shoots me better shoot well or I’m shooting back,” Norman told The Post and Courier.
Giffords’ husband, retired NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, said in a statement that Norman is “no Gabby Giffords.”
“Americans are increasingly faced with a stark choice: leaders like Gabby, who work hard together to find solutions to problems, or extremists like the NRA and Congressman Norman, who rely on intimidation tactics and perpetuating fear,” Kelly said.
Norman vowed to continue to display his gun at future constituent meetings.
“I’m tired of these liberals jumping on the guns themselves as if they are the cause of the problem,” Norman told The Post and Courier. “Guns are not the problem.”
He told the paper guns are only dangerous in the hands of criminals.Â
Contributing: The Associated Press
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Yolanda Renee King, grand daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., left, and Jaclyn Corin, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and one of the organizers of the rally, hug during the “March for Our Lives” rally in support of gun control on March 24, 2018, in Washington. Â
March organizers and Reynolds High School students junior Hannah Kepple, 17, left, junior Audrey Meigs, 16, center, and senior Aryelle Jacobsen, 17, listen as the names of the victims of last month’s shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida are recited at Martin Luther King, Jr. Park during the Asheville March for Our Lives on March 24, 2018. Â
Tahara Anderson, 42, from Wantagh, NY, is marching for her boys, ages 10 and 7. “One of them was really scared because the lockdown drills have increased,” she said. “He was crying, ‘What if I’m in the hall, what if I can’t get to my brother?'” Anderson said the school shootings have left her with a “feeling of dread.” She wants to stand with the kids across the country who are pushing for an end to mass gun violence.”What an inspiration they are,” she said. “Maybe they will be the voice that will bring the change.” She is at Penn Station.Â
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