Shot congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords visits Newtown massacre families

Gabrielle Giffords, centre, in Newtown yesterday (Reuters)

Gabrielle Giffords, the former congresswoman who survived a mass shooting in her Arizona constituency, held a private meeting yesterday with families of the 26 victims of last month’s gun rampage at a school in Connecticut.

Mrs Giffords was left partially blind and paralysed in her right arm when she was shot in the head while meeting voters at a Tucson grocery shop in January 2011. Arizona’s chief federal judge and five others were killed and 13 people, including Mrs Giffords, 42, were hurt. She has since become a gun control advocate.

Earlier this week, she met New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg to discuss stricter gun laws in the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.

Meanwhile, at Southington, 30 miles from Newtown, a community group is planning a video games amnesty next Saturday, with people invited to swap their violent titles for gift vouchers. The games will be burned. The group, Southington SOS, did not suggest such games caused the Sandy Hook killings but claimed violence in popular culture had “is desensitising our children to acts of violence.”