Gabby Giffords’ attack dog gun ads called ‘base and vile’ — by supporters

The Gabby Giffords that tried to wring out sympathy votes for gun control by citing her near-death gun-related experience is long gone, it seems. Now, the former Arizona lawmaker has gone on the attack with new campaign videos that are so vicious that even those on the left say they’re shocked.

The Arizona Republic, a newspaper that has backed Ms. Giffords in the past and that normally leans left, called one of her recent campaign ads “base and vile,” Politico reported. The ad was aimed at unseating Republican Martha McSally, a retired Air Force pilot who’s seeking the seat once held by Ms. Giffords.

In it, a woman named Vicki weeps uncontrollably as she tries to tell how her 19-year-old daughter was hunted and shot by an ex-boyfriend. The woman named Vicki says: “He had threatened her before. I knew. I just knew,” Politico reported. A voice in the background then says that Ms. McSally “opposes making it harder for stalkers to get a gun,” Politico reported.

The Arizona Republic opined that the “Vicki” ad put the murder “at McSally’s feet, as if she were responsible. A murder indictment implied. But, of course, McSally had nothing to do with” the death, Politico reported.

Ms. Giffords, meanwhile, has put out another ad targeting Ms. McSally with similar tones. In this one, a woman named Carol says her daughter was killed by a criminal who purchased a gun at a show absent a background check — and that Ms. McSally opposes just such checks.

“To McSally, it’s just politics,” the Carol in the campaign ad states, while clutching a picture of her daughter, Politico reported. “To me, it’s personal.”

Ms. Giffords, in the wake of her 2011 shooting, has spent considerable time lobbying lawmakers on Capitol Hill for gun control — to no avail. After the Newtown shooting of 26, for instance, Ms. Giffords testified before Congress in support of expanded background checks, But when lawmakers failed to pass the measure, she wrote that she was “furious” at the decision, Politico reported.