TUCSON, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., may be an isolated act, but tension in her Arizona district is not new, a supporter says.
Last March, right after Giffords voted for the healthcare bill, the glass door of her district office in Tucson here was shattered by a kick or a pellet gun. No one was ever charged.
"She was extremely concerned about it," Thomas Warne, a friend and fundraiser, told The New York Times. "She was concerned about various threats that the office had received; they were general threats on the office itself, on her life".
Earlier, a man with a gun came to one of Giffords' town meetings on healthcare. "There was a sense, even in '09, that there was a real anger in the district," said Rodd McLeod, her campaign manager.
Giffords' Republican opponent last year, Jesse Kelly, held a "targeting victory" fundraiser in which he invited contributors to shoot an assault rifle with him.
At a rally in October, Kelly said, "If you dare to stand up to the government they call us a mob. We're about to show them what a mob looks like". UPI
