Giffords targets 8 Republicans on conceal and carry in new ads

Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’s (D-Ariz.) gun safety group is running advertisements to pressure Republican lawmakers ahead of a vote on a new concealed carry bill.

“The ads call on voters to speak up about this dangerous bill and call on their leaders [to] put the safety of communities before the interests of the gun industry,” Peter Ambler, executive director of Giffords’s political group, told Politico.

The ads come as the House is expected to vote this week on the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017, which would allow licensed gun owners to carry their firearms in other states that have their own concealed carry laws. 

The vote on the bill comes after mass shootings in Sutherland Springs, Texas, and Las Vegas. 

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The targeted Republican lawmakers include Reps. Rodney Frelinghuysen (N.J.), Jason Lewis (Minn.), Steve Knight (Calif.), Ed Royce (Calif.), Mimi Walters (Calif.), Mike Coffman (Colo.), Lee Zeldin (N.Y.) and Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), Politico reported.

Each of those representatives is considered vulnerable in the 2018 midterms and Democrats are expected to heavily target those seats in their effort to take back the House.

Giffords was shot in the head on Jan. 8, 2011, by a gunman who killed six people and wounded 18 others in an attack at a “meet and greet” for the congresswoman in a supermarket parking lot.

She has since become an advocate for anti-gun violence causes. She started an anti-gun nonprofit, Americans for Responsible Solutions, in 2013.