The one-year anniversary of the Tucson shootings came and went last week. The incident left 13 injured and six dead. One of the shooting survivors has very strong feelings about what happened, the congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her astronaut husband Mark Kelly. The survivor best describes his feeling towards all of it as nausea.
“Every time I see them on TV,” George Morris, 77, said, “it makes me want to vomit.”
Morris is an ultra-conservative who attended the town hall outside of the grocery store to complain to Giffords. The shooting occurred on January 8, 2011. Morris wanted to complain to Giffords because she kept voting for liberal causes.
Before Morris was able to speak with Giffords, a gunman began firing shots into the crowd. The gunman was identified as Jared Lee Loughner. Morris’ wife, Dorothy, was one of the six killed in the shooting rampage. Morris himself was hit in the back and in his legs. Giffords suffered a gunshot wound to the head.
Morris said he was angry at the political performance of Giffords, but now he thinks that she should be removed from her post immediately.
“I think she ought to be thrown out of Congress posthaste,” he said. “I do not think she is worthy of serving.”
Morris is a retired airline pilot and Marine who was married to Dorothy for 54 before she was murdered. The couple met during their junior year in high school.
Morris said that he did not always agree with his wife but that “no man has ever loved a woman more than I loved my wife.”
“If my wife had a fault, it was she was too concerned about how other people would feel,” said Morris.
Morris feels so strongly about his political beliefs that he turned down an invitation to have President Barack Obama come visit him in the hospital during the days following the incident.
I can understand that he’s hurting, terribly. And while I would think that having been the victim of a gun crime, and losing the love of his life to a gun crime, one would be rethinking some of the Republican base’s core beliefs, I think Congresswoman Griffords has made and continues to make a remarkable achievement. I think anyone begrudging her that is hateful.
Again though, those are the words of a man in a world of pain. Asking the spouse or parent of someone who died in a tragedy such as this, their thoughts on the intended victim and survivor is crass and probably unnecessary.