U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) appeared saddened then angry Tuesday morning during a Senate committee hearing when he lamented that there have been “too damn many” mass shootings, even in Texas, after a 21-year old gunman was arrested and charged with murdering 10 people at a Boulder, Colorado supermarket Monday.
It was a speech he’s delivered before.
“We’ve had far too many tragedies in our country,” Cruz declared Tuesday morning. “Once again we wake up to a horrific act of mass murder. All of us lift up in prayer, the families, Boulder, Colorado, families in Atlanta that lost their lives, including the police officer in Boulder, Colorado. I can tell you in Texas we’ve seen far too many of these. I was in Santa Fe, the morning of that shooting. Santa Fe high school’s less than an hour from my house. I was in El Paso at the Walmart for yet another senseless mass murder. I was in Dallas where five police officers were murdered by a radical. I was in Sutherland Springs in that beautiful sanctuary where a monster murdered innocent people. I attended too damn many of these.”
“It is time for us to do something,” Cruz insisted, saying he agrees with Connecticut Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal. But that is where the agreement ended.
“Every time there’s a shooting, we play this ridiculous theater where this committee gets together and proposes a bunch of laws that would do nothing to stop these murders,” he said, falsely. Mass shootings skyrocketed after Republicans refused to allow the assault weapons ban to be renewed, legislation seven out of 10 Americans, including a majority of Republicans support.
Cruz went on to attack Blumenthal, saying, “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 to stop them from getting firearms to put them in prison, when they try to illegally buy guns.”
Cruz voted to condemn preventing social security recipients with “marked subnormal intelligence, or mental illness, incompetency, condition, or disease” from owning guns.
Cruz has voted against keeping suspected terrorists from being able to purchase guns and voted against expanding background checks. He’s voted against closing the gun show loophole.
He then blasted Democrats for criticizing lawmakers who offer “thoughts and prayers” while voting against gun reform: