WASHINGTON (AP) — Wounded former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will appear as an unscheduled witness today at the year’s first congressional hearing on curbing gun violence, adding drama to a session that was already slated to hear from a top official of the National Rifle Association.

Giffords, an Arizona Democrat who suffered a severe head wound in a 2011 Tucson shooting spree that killed six people, was not expected to take questions, according to a Senate aide who revealed the details.

The dramatic juxtaposition between the NRA and a famous shooting victim set the stage for the hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose own members are divided. The varying approaches among the lawmakers is a microcosm of the divisive debate at large that gun limits will face on their way through Congress.

Today’s hearing is a response to the Dec. 14 shooting rampage that killed 20 first-graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and transformed gun control into a top-tier issue in the capital.

“The time has come to change course,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., one of Congress’ leading gun-control advocates, said Tuesday. “And the time has come to make people safe.”

Feinstein, a Judiciary Committee member, has already introduced her own legislation banning assault weapons and magazines of more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he would listen to proposals and agreed that reviewing the issue was timely.

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