When Sen. Mark Kelly heard about the killing of the conservative commentator Charlie Kirk on Wednesday, his mind raced back 14 years.

It was 2011 when Kelly’s wife, Gabby Giffords, then a House Democrat, was shot in the head while meeting with constituents outside a supermarket. Giffords nearly died that day. The shooting changed both of their lives forever, Kelly said Friday at a town hall in Columbia, S.C.

“This kind of political violence that we have seen in our country … you saw it in the 1960s. My wife got shot in 2011. Lately, we’ve been seeing more of it,” Kelly said. “It is un-American. Unacceptable.”

“This is the time when we have to try to bring people together,” the Arizona Democrat said.

Each time a new act of violence targets a political figure, whispers about security gro

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