Launch Giffords ship named

A U.S. warship will be officially named Gabrielle Giffords in honor of the Arizona Democratic congresswoman who survived a 2011 gunshot wound to the head. It will be the first Navy ship named after a living woman in 160 years.

The ceremony, which will take place in Galveston, Texas, will feature Hillary Clinton and former Vice President Joe Biden.

The vessel is a 418-foot combat ship bearing machine guns and missiles. Below the mast, a box will hold an American flag patch that Giffords’ husband, Mark Kelly, a retired astronaut, wore on his spacesuit; a purple heart left at the hospital where Giffords was treated for the gunshot wound; her congressional identification; and a 19th-century coin.

Six people died and 12 were injured in the January 2011 assassination attempt, in which Giffords was shot in the head at close range. She recovered from the attack and resigned her seat a year later. She learned that the ship would be named for her on the day she resigned. In the years since, she and Kelly have become gun safety advocates