Former Member of Parliament Gabby Giffordswho was shot in the head in 2011, in a speech to the Democratic Convention on his last night, said Vice President Kamala Harris “can defeat the gun lobby.”

Giffords, who was elected to Congress in 2006, seemed to have a bright future in the Democratic Party when she was nearly killed by a gunshot to the head while meeting with her constituents at a supermarket in Tucson, Arizona, in January 2011. The shooting left six people dead and more than a dozen injured.

“For five years I served a swing district in Congress,” she said. “Everyone called me a rising star.” The day she was shot was “a terrible, terrible day,” she said.

She resigned from Congress a year after the shooting to focus on her recovery, but in the years that followed she became a passionate advocate for gun reform. For years she struggled with her public speaking skills, and on Thursday night she showed that she has made dramatic progress.

“I almost died. But I fought for my life and survived. I learned to walk again, step by step. I learned to speak again, word by word,” Giffords said.

She thanked President Biden for checking in with her in the years since the shooting, calling him a “decent man.” She also praised Harris as “tough” and “snarky.”

“Kamala can defeat the gun lobby,” Giffords said.

Thursday’s broadcast also featured other victims of gun violence, including a teacher who survived the Sandy Hook massacre and the mother of a student killed in the Uvalde school shooting.

Giffords was accompanied by her husband, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, who also made remarks following an appearance by Pink.

“President Obama had to follow Michelle. I had to follow Gabby and Pink,” he joked.

He said his wife, who suffers from aphasia and has difficulty speaking, amazes him every day.

“She was able to come out here tonight and speak to you because she is a fighter,” he said before turning to foreign policy and national security issues.

He said Russia, Iran, North Korea and China were watching the US closely and accused Trump of “snuggling up to dictators and dreaming of becoming one himself”. He said the “world is laughing at Trump” and the threats against the US were too serious to re-elect him.

Kelly praised Harris for her support of U.S. troops and veterans, NATO and Ukraine, and for her defense of free and fair elections.

“You already know what Trump thinks about this,” Kelly said, referring to negative comments the former president allegedly made about military personnel.

In 2020, Kelly entered politics, running for Senate to finish the late John McCain’s term. Kelly, a former astronaut, won the seat in the historically Republican state, giving Democrats both Senate seats in Arizona for the first time in nearly 70 years.

Kelly, who ran as a moderate candidate, was re-elected in 2022.

He was one of the Candidates Vice President Kamala Harris had considered nominating her as her running mate before settling on Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Kelly’s name has also been mentioned as a possible successor to President Biden, who has been under increasing pressure to drop out of the race.