(Update: 2:44 PM — Late reports say that Giffords is still alive and in surgery at University Medical Hospital in Tucson.)
We now have apparently confirmed reports that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was shot and killed this morning by an as-yet-unidentified assassin at a “Congress on Your Corner” event outside a grocery store in her district in Tucson, Arizona. She was reportedly shot in the head at point blank range. There were at least three other and possibly as many as six other killed in the shooting.
Giffords, 40, had just been elected to her third term representing Arizona’s 3rd Congressional district.
