Former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords penned
an op-ed piece for Vogue magazine in which she called gun violence in the United States a "full-blown national crisis."
Giffords was shot in the head in 2011 during a mass shooting outside of Tucson that killed six people and left her severely injured. She and her husband, Mark, founded Americans for Responsible Solutions that focuses on gun violence.
Her op-ed ran Thursday, also National Gun Violence Awareness Day.
Citing statistics — 91 killed by guns on an average day — Giffords railed against "bad laws that make it too easy for dangerous people, including felons, domestic abusers, and stalkers, to get their hands on guns."
"Inaction in Congress and in statehouses around our country is an evil. The status quo is an enemy," Giffords wrote.
She enumerated some progress at the state level while warning against letting "optimism wane."
She lauds Hillary Clinton for being the candidate running on a platform of "reducing gun violence" and standing up to the NRA.
"This November will be the Gun Violence Awareness Election," Giffords wrote in conclusion. "And now it's up to those candidates to decide whether they'll stand on the side of the gun lobby, or the side of common sense, responsibility, and the American people."