Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) listens at the confirmation hearing for Samantha Power, nominee to be Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 23, 2021 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (Photo by Greg Nash-Pool/Getty Images)
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 1:05 PM PT – Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) knocked Democrats for weaponizing mass shooting incidents to pass new gun control laws. During Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence and the House background check bill, Cruz defended the GOP from Democrats who claim “the right’s only plan to combat gun violence is to ‘do nothing.’”
“What happens in this committee after every mass shooting is Democrats propose taking away guns from law-abiding citizens,” Cruz noted.
The Texas senator referenced his joint bill with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), which was originally drafted in 2013. The joint bill is designed to preserve Second Amendment rights while keeping guns out of the hands of violent criminals.
Sen. Ted Cruz: “Today, Chairman Grassley & I are introducing again Grassley/Cruz… Let’s target the bad guys, the felons… Let’s put them in jail, stop them from getting guns. Let’s not scapegoat innocent law abiding citizens & let’s not target their Constitutional rights.” pic.twitter.com/TTcSrrgt9v
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) March 23, 2021
“Senator Grassley and I together introduced legislation, ‘Grassley/Cruz,’ targeted at violent criminals, targeted at felons, targeted at fugitives, targeted at those with serious mental disease,” Cruz stated. “To stop them from getting firearms, to put them in prison when they try to illegally buy guns.”
Sen. Ted Cruz: “Democrats propose taking away guns from law abiding citizens because that’s their political objective. But what they propose, not only does it not reduce crime, it makes it worse. The jurisdictions w/ the strictest gun control have among highest rates of crime…” pic.twitter.com/lD9dssEpvj
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) March 23, 2021
The two Republican senators reintroduced that bill again in 2019. Cruz pointed out the states and local governments with the strictest gun control measures have some of the highest rates of violent crime.
Cruz added, when you disarm law-abiding citizens you make them more likely to be victims.
