Giffords Wins Profiles In Courage Award

Each year since 1990, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation gives a Profiles In Courage Award to people who have taken a conscience-driven stand to improve their community/nation in spite of significant opposition, which put their life or career in jeopardy. The 2013 winner of the prestigious award in former congresswoman Gabrielle "Gabby" Giffords.

Giffords, who survived being shot in the head by an assassin in 2011, has fought back and now champions reasonable gun restrictions in this country. She and her husband recently founded Americans for Responsible Gun Ownership, which supports "the right to bear arms and responsible public policy on guns and gun ownership".

Caroline Kennedy presented the award to Giffords saying, "Our family is still suffering from the heartbreak caused by gun violence. No one should have to lose a husband, a wife, a father, a child, to senseless murder. But as our nominee has shown, out of that pain and tragedy, we must find the strength to carry on, to give meaning to our lives, and to build a more just and peaceful world."