Gabrielle Dee Giffords is an American retired politician and gun control advocate who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives representing Arizona’s 8th congressional district from January 2007 until January 2012, when she resigned due to a severe brain injury suffered during an assassination attempt.
A member of the Democratic Party, she was the third woman in Arizona’s history to be elected to the U.S. Congress. Though a moderate on the issue during her time in Congress, Giffords has since become an ardent advocate for gun control.
In January 2013, she and her husband launched Americans for Responsible Solutions, a non-profit organization and Super-PAC which later joined with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence to become Giffords.
On October 13, 2022, she was named the Grand Marshal of the 2023 Rose Parade and will preside over the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl game.
Gabby Giffords Parents: Meet Spencer J. Giffords, Gloria Fraser Giffords
Gabrielle Dee Giffords was born and grew up in Tucson, Arizona; her parents were Gloria Kay (née Fraser) and Spencer J. Giffords.
She was raised in a mixed religious environment, as her mother was a Christian Scientist and her father was Jewish.
Her paternal grandfather, Akiba Hornstein, was a Jewish emigrant from Lithuania who changed his name to Giffords to avoid anti-Semitism in the United States.
Through her father, Giffords is a second cousin of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Jake Paltrow.
Giffords graduated from Tucson’s University High School. She is a former Girl Scout. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology and Latin American History from Scripps College in California in 1993; and spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar in Chihuahua, Mexico.
She returned to graduate school, earning a Master’s degree in Regional Planning from Cornell University in 1996. She focused her studies on Mexican-American relations.
Giffords worked as an associate for regional economic development at Price Waterhouse in New York City. In 1996, she became president and CEO of El Campo Tire Warehouses, a local chain of auto service centres founded by her grandfather.
The business was sold to Goodyear Tire in 2000. At the time of the sale, she commented on the difficulties local businesses face when competing against large national firms.
