Sen. Ted Cruz on Thursday rejected Democratic calls for tougher gun control laws, and said the way to stop future tragic events like the weekend shooting in Orlando is to beef up anti-terrorism efforts.
“This is not a gun control issue,” he said on the Senate floor. “This is a terrorism issue.”
“You don’t defeat terrorism by taking away our guns, you defeat terrorism by using our guns,” he added.
Cruz spoke a day after Democrats held the Senate all day to call for tighter gun control laws. But Cruz said the filibuster was “offensive” to many people, as Democrats were putting blame on the Second Amendment to the Constitution, and the National Rifle Association, a group that supports the right to bear arms.
“It wasn’t the NRA who murdered 49 people in Orlando,” he said. “It is offensive to play political games with the constitutional rights of American citizens.”
Cruz also charged that the filibuster was a predictable “political show” that is distracting from the real issue, and said most Americans see through it.
“I think the American people find it ridiculous that in response to an ISIS terror attack, the Democrats go on high dudgeon that we’ve gotta restrict the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens,” he said.
Cruz blamed President Obama for setting the wrong tone.
“We need a commander in chief who will speak the truth, who will address the enemy we face, who will unleash the full force and fury of the American military on defeating ISIS and defeating radical Islamic terrorism,” he said.
Cruz said the U.S. should make sure would-be terrorists are put on notice that any action against the U.S. will be met with swift action. Instead, however, he said the Obama administration has insisted on taking on more refugees, despite claims from within the government that the officials can’t easily tell when a terrorist is trying to enter the U.S. disguised as a refugee.
