Rep. Gabrielle Gif­fords. Source: gif​fords​.house​.gov

On Jan­u­ary 8, 2011, U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Gabrielle Gif­fords (D-​​AZ) was shot in the head by alleged gun­man Jared Laughner.

For our quick-​​cut Sat­ur­day pieces, one of the other mod­er­a­tors asked me (quite rea­son­ably) to write a few words about her recov­ery, since I am a brain sci­en­tist by trade.

I was ini­tially very reluc­tant to do so, because I am afraid of cross­ing a line into pruri­ent inter­est. I would sub­mit that when she sus­tained a mas­sive brain injury from a gunman’s bul­let, she vacated the realm of a pub­lic fig­ure whose life should be laid bare because of a “right to know.”

Now I believe she has become a pri­vate per­son who, like the 360,000 brave sol­diers who sus­tained brain injuries in the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan or the esti­mated five mil­lion Amer­i­cans who have suf­fered head injuries from falls, auto­mo­bile acci­dents, or sports, deserve their pri­vacy as they begin the long and dif­fi­cult jour­ney into the light.

So, I’m kick­ing off a meta-​​discussion. We may get around to the details (at least, what is known) about her recov­ery, but before we do that: should we be dis­cussing this at all?