Giffords Has Pennsylvania in Her Crosshairs as Key to Gun-Control House Majority

Washington is a town full of power couples. One of the more powerful power couples inside the Beltway is the combo of Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), who is now a gun control advocate. She comes by her position on the issue more honestly than most.

On Jan. 8, 2011, Giffords was shot in the head in an attempted assassination in a grocery store parking lot in Casas Adobes, Ariz. She was participating in a community outreach event when the shooter opened fire, killing six and wounding 13 others, including Giffords.

To the left’s disappointment on that day, the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, was not conservative. According to his friends, he had known animus towards both Giffords, a Democrat, and former President George W. Bush, a Republican. Loughner was arrested, put on trial, and is now in prison.

While Giffords survived the attack, her injuries were life-altering and debilitating. She later resigned from Congress, and she became one of the country’s leading gun control activists.

Any conservative can empathize with Giffords over what she’s been through while at the same time resisting her efforts to enact serious gun control legislation. That’s where we are as we approach the midterms.

In Pennsylvania, her super PAC, Giffords PAC, is endorsing and supporting nine Democrat candidates, including incumbent Gov. Josh Shapiro (D). The PAC has decided that Pennsylvania is the lynchpin to winning a Democrat majority in the House.

To gain the endorsement and financial support of Giffords PAC, candidates must take an aggressive stance in favor of gun control.

Giffords herself had effusive praise for gun control champion Shapiro as he runs for reelection to the governorship, where he can cool his heels for about a year before his likely 2028 presidential run.

“Governor Josh Shapiro has been a strong champion for Pennsylvania families when it comes to confronting gun violence,” Giffords said, according to reporting from The Center Square (TCS). “From his time as attorney general, when he worked with local law enforcement to tackle the spread of ghost guns, to his work as governor, when he reestablished the Office of Gun Violence Prevention and secured funding for community violence intervention, Governor Shapiro has consistently fought to keep Pennsylvanians safe.”

As you might expect, the National Rifle Association (NRA) has endorsed Shapiro’s challenger, state treasurer Stacy Garrity, a Republican.

The other Pennsylvania gun control advocates Giffords PAC supports this election cycle, all of whom are running for Congress, include: Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti (D), Janelle Stelson, and incumbent Democrat representatives Madeleine Dean, Chris Deluzio, Chrissy Houlahan, Summer Lee, and Mary Gay Scanlon.

Believe it or not, Giffords PAC is also endorsing a Republican, in the form of incumbent Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, whose district is in the Philadelphia metro area. He has earned an “F” rating from the NRA and is a poster-child RINO.

If Summer Lee’s name sounds familiar, she’s a B-team member of the squad and was a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) until 2021.

When it comes to spending, Giffords PAC has allocated $850,000 in advertising money donations alone just to get Scranton’s mayor Cognetti elected to Congress, according to The Center Square. The PAC will spend $10 million in the midterms on candidates it sees as most likely to try to roll back some of your Second Amendment freedoms.

ICYMI: A national gun safety organization is backing candidates in several races in Pennsylvania ahead of the 2026 midterm election, which includes an $850,000 advertising investment into a closely watched U.S. House race. https://t.co/kgRpUoCIJR
— John Cole (@John__Cole) October 5, 2026

“Pennsylvania is crucial to securing a gun safety majority in the House and ensuring voters are engaged leading up to 2028,” Chris Harris, Vice President of Communications for Giffords PAC, told TCS. “Each of these endorsed candidates have demonstrated their commitment to fighting gun violence.”

The left is quite good at figuring out how to change the meaning of words in order to win an argument they would otherwise lose. “Gun violence” is so commonplace a term that even unsuspecting Republicans and conservatives use it, glossing over the cold facts that guns don’t fire themselves, and that violence comes from bad people, but people nevertheless.

“Gun safety” is the left’s code for “gun control” and “gun confiscation.” The term is code for infringement of your Second Amendment rights. But in focus groups it sounds logical and harmless.

Incumbent Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.) is Cognetti’s opponent, and his campaign is hitting back against both Cognetti and Giffords PAC.

"Paige Cognetti, who hasn't earned a single endorsement from a police union in her bid for Congress, said she'd love a world where police and citizens don't carry guns, and then cut Scranton police ammunition funding in half while gang violence and violent crime surged,” said Bresnahan’s campaign manager Peter Brath to TCS. “Now, a national gun-control group that wants to register the guns NEPA hunters and families already own is trying to bail her out from her own positions, and the gun owners here will see right through it."

TCS reports that Cognetti’s comments on how she’d “love a world where police don’t have firearms” and that “citizens don’t carry them either” originated in a virtual town hall from June 2020.

If Giffords PAC’s candidates win, and the Democrats take a majority in the House, expect to see ramped-up efforts to pass universal background checks and red flag laws, in addition to every other overreach they can think of to weaken the Second Amendment.

Keep one thing in mind as this topic comes up in conversations you may have with your friends and family who are taking the bait that this is about “gun safety": It’s not. It’s about government power and control over you and the rest of the citizenry.

The Second Amendment exists for a reason, and it’s not hunting deer.

Gun control activists know this better than anyone. Just because they’re not talking about confiscation right now, don’t think for a moment that’s not their goal. Taking your guns away is critical to the end game, which is to give a leftist government more power over everyone.

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