Giffords to Congress: Background Checks. Now.

"I think about patience every day," says Gabrielle Giffords, as she rehabilitates from being shot in the head two years ago. But as she looks at the gun control dance playing out on Capitol Hill, she finds herself running short of that particular virtue. "What are they waiting for?" she asks in an op-ed for the New York Daily News. Universal background checks are a no-brainer, with overwhelming support from 90% of the public, 74% of NRA members, and 72% of hunters. "I can’t remember a time when this many Americans spoke with such a united voice in favor of anything," she writes.

It's time to end the double standard, Giffords says, of making law-abiding citizens undergo a background check while ill-intentioned people "like the young man who shot me" skirt the system by buying guns on the Internet or at gun shows. And the NRA is entirely too willing to "throw up their hands and say we should do nothing, because we know that no one thing will solve this problem overnight." Malarkey, says Giffords: "If I had thought about that, I would still be sitting in a hospital bed." Instead, she learned to walk again. "The will of the American people is clear, but our patience is wearing thin. Congress must not fail us." Click for Giffords' full column, or for her Americans for Responsible Solutions website. (More Gabrielle Giffords shooting stories.)