At today’s sentencing of Jared Loughner, former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords reportedly did not look away from the Arizona shooter as her husband Mark Kelly joined other victims in delivering their final statements. Loughner, who avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to the 2011 killing of six people and wounding of thirteen others, will spend the rest of his life in prison — having received seven consecutive life terms plus 140 years — and declined to speak.
“By making death and producing tragedy you sought to extinguish the beauty of life, to diminish potential, to strain love, and to cancel ideas,” Kelly said while his wife watched. “You tried to create for all of us a world as dark, and evil as your own. But know this, and remember it always: You failed.” He also used the moment to call for stricter gun laws.
“You may have been mentally ill, but you are responsible,” said Kelly. “You have decades and decades to think about what you did, but after this moment here today, Gabby and I are done thinking about you.”
