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We Met With Ted Cruz About Stopping Mass Shootings. His Response Was Disgusting.


BarryLaverty

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Reenacting an assault weapons ban would make a difference. 
 
HuffPost

We Met With Ted Cruz About Stopping Mass Shootings. His Response Was Disgusting.

 
 
Ashbey Beasley
 
 
From left: Lonnie Phillips, Sandy Phillips, Felix Rubio and Kim Rubio meet with Sen. Ted Cruz in his Texas office in September 2022.
 
From left: Lonnie Phillips, Sandy Phillips, Felix Rubio and Kim Rubio meet with Sen. Ted Cruz in his Texas office in September 2022.

From left: Lonnie Phillips, Sandy Phillips, Felix Rubio and Kim Rubio meet with Sen. Ted Cruz in his Texas office in September 2022.

On Sunday, while many of us slept, a gunman opened fired on a bus in a University of Virginia parking lot and killed three students: D’Sean Perry, Devin Chandler and Lavel Davis Jr. Two others were injured. Students across the campus sheltered in place for almost 12 hours while an intensive manhunt ensued and finally ended when the suspect was taken into custody without incident. The incident marks the 598th mass shooting this year and the second school shooting in Virginia in 2022.

Polls show that gun control was one of the five top issues for voters during last week’s midterms. It is clear that people are tired of being afraid of mass shootings and they showed it by reelecting every senator who co-sponsored the federal assault weapons ban bill.

 

This does not surprise me. As an anti-gun activist, I have been lobbying for a federal assault weapons ban ever since my 6-year-old son and I survived a mass shooting earlier this year after a man opened fire with an AR-15 at our hometown’s Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois, killing seven people and injuring over 40.

On a brisk but sunny Wednesday afternoon in September, I sat in a meeting surrounded by a small group of gun violence victims, survivors and activists. We were gathered in a circle of seats in the personal office of GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

He was seated right in front of me with only two feet of hot air between us and nothing else.

We went around the room introducing ourselves, and the senator was cordial. His face was appropriately sympathetic. He looked each of us in the eye as we spoke. He nodded along somberly as I told him about running with my 6-year-old son from a mass shooter.

After the introductions concluded, we asked for the senator’s support for a federal assault weapons ban.

Kim and Felix Rubio, the parents of Lexi, who was murdered at Robb Elementary School in May, had traveled all the way from Uvalde, Texas. Felix showed the senator a photo of their 10-year-old daughter in her casket. The senator looked at it stoically and then he looked at the pained faces of the Rubios as he told them that his solution to school shootings was to put more police officers in schools.

The energy in the room shifted suddenly. It was palpable. Some members of our group gasped. Others started crying. Sandy Phillips, the mother of Jesse Phillips, who was gunned down in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, in 2012, walked out of the room in disgust. Shock and disbelief hung heavy in the air over each of us as someone blurted out that 376 law enforcement officers stood by and did nothing to save the 19 children and two teachers who were brutally slaughtered in Uvalde.

They did nothing to save Lexi.

On Oct. 24, almost six weeks to the day of that meeting, a school shooting in St. Louis became the 40th school shooting this year.

As details emerged, it was reported that the shooter had a dozen 30-round magazines with him and he used an AR-15-style rifle. Just like the shooter in Uvalde. Just like in Highland Park. The school had metal detectors, the doors were locked and there were security guards.

It didn’t matter.

Even the police couldn’t prevent this school shooting ― the family of the shooter had asked police to seize the weapon that would later be used to kill 16-year-old Alexzandria Bell and physical education teacher Jean Kuczka. Police confiscated the weapon but “determined at that time the suspect was lawfully permitted to possess the firearm.” The AR-15-style assault weapon was returned to a third party known to the family. It is not known how the shooter regained possession of the firearm.

Ted Cruz was silent on Twitter. But gun violence prevention advocates weren’t. Because we know that police and security guards and locked doors don’t prevent school shootings. Even schools with their own police force like the University of Virginia can’t prevent mass shootings.

While we don’t know what kind of gun was used in the Virginia shooting, we do know the only thing that will prevent the majority of mass shootings and school shootings is banning assault weapons. Data proves it. During the assault weapons ban from 1994 to 2004, the likelihood of being killed in a mass shooting decreased by 70%.

The easy access to weapons of war is what is killing our children. Right now, an 18-year-old who is not old enough to buy alcohol or a handgun can legally buy an assault weapon. Assault weapons were designed to kill as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time. The shooting my son and I survived involved an AR-15. In less than 50 seconds, the shooter in Highland Park shot almost 100 rounds into a crowd of families. He stopped to reload twice. In Uvalde, some parents had to use DNA to identify their children because bullets from an assault weapon are powerful enough to liquefy a person’s organs.

These are weapons of war and they are being used again and again to murder our children in the one place they should feel safe ― at school. And that isn’t the worst of it. A Washington Post database on school shootings reports the number of children exposed to gun violence in schools since the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School is 320,000.

What are we doing?

A federal assault weapons ban would have prevented the massacre in Uvalde and it would have prevented the killing of a 16-year-old girl and her teacher in St. Louis. Please don’t wait until your family is touched by gun violence to get involved. Help pass a federal assault weapons ban by calling your senators today via the U.S. Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121. Ask them to support the ban and then vote to elect gun-sense candidates.

Sadly, I believe it’s not a matter of whether your life will be touched by gun violence but when. The clock is ticking ― don’t let it run out on your family.

A representative for Cruz emailed the following statement to HuffPost in regard to the senator’s response: “Sen. Cruz was in Uvalde mourning with the community the day after the shooting and later met with loved ones of the victims. Following this tragedy, Senator Cruz introduced legislation and fought to enact reforms that would double the number of school resource officers, hire 15,000 school-based mental health professionals to ensure there is early intervention to identify and help at-risk kids, provide significant resources for enhanced school safety, and to improve the gun background system and prosecute persons who try to illegally buy guns. Unfortunately, Senate Democrats blocked it with no explanation whatsoever.”

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37 minutes ago, BarryLaverty said:
Reenacting an assault weapons ban would make a difference. 

Define it, Barry. Maybe you can actually do something a lot of Democratic politicians, and people like this author, can't. Give makes/models of these so-called "assault weapons". And explain exactly how, using facts, they're classified as "assault weapons".

Or is it more like this:

Guy #1 "Can we get them started with a couple of Glock 17's?"

Later...

Girl: (about Glock 17) "Is that a fully semi-automatic single hollow point assault machine gun?"
Guy #1: "Um..."
Girl: "Is that a 30 magazine clip?"
Girl's Husband: "No. That's an 8 bullet round."

 

Edited by Monte1076
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22 minutes ago, Monte1076 said:

Define it, Barry. Maybe you can actually do something a lot of Democratic politicians, and people like this author, can't. Give makes/models of these so-called "assault weapons". And explain exactly how, using facts, they're classified as "assault weapons".

www.giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/hardware-ammunition/assault-weapons/

Edited by BarryLaverty
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8 minutes ago, BarryLaverty said:

www.giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/hardware-ammunition/assault-weapons/

There's a bunch of vague definitions on that page. 

Case in point:

Quote

Assault weapons are a class of semi-automatic firearm specifically designed to kill humans quickly and efficiently. 

What class? Semi-automatics (even pistols) can do this. And again, no real definition. If someone has a semi-automatic pistol, and five or six magazines, and they're proficient enough, that is, depending on magazine capacity, between 45 and 54 rounds that they have at their disposal.

Quote

developing and marketing new types of weapons based on high-powered military designs.

"They look scary!"

Quote

Wounds caused by assault weapons are more severe and lethal than wounds caused by other firearms

They make this statement, but don't really provide any supporting evidence.

Quote

A growing body of research demonstrates that banning assault weapons can help to prevent gun violence. Studies of both the lapsed federal assault weapons ban and state-level assault weapons bans show that these laws help to reduce fatalities and injuries from mass shootings, as well as the use of assault weapons in crime.

Where are these studies? What's the methodology used? Is it sound? What did they use as a control?

Edited by Monte1076
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4 minutes ago, ObiOne said:

They want those too.  RIght after they get all these first.

I think a lot of them have absolutely little to no idea what they're talking about. A LARGE majority of firearms in the U.S. are semi-automatic. Most pistols are (sans revolvers, of course), and most rifles are, too (bolt-action being an exception off the top of my head).

Heck, Biden even said that a 9mm round would "blow a lung out" (i.e. blow it out of the body).

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Virginia shooting was a handgun.

We know how this plays out.  They ban "assault weapons" and there will be little to no change.  Then they say "we have to do more".  So they will enforce more laws against legal gun ownership to the point of making it Canada.

The end goal is to remove all legal gun ownership because they don't believe you have the right to own a gun. 

There is never any other conversation with these people about stopping horrific incidents.  The answer is always ban guns.  Guns have been part of America's culture since it's inception.  It's the only way we became what we are today.  Guns are not new.  These shootings are new.  What has changed?  It's not the guns.  It's the way we raise our kids.  It's the way we devalue human life through teaching that it only has value after it's made it out of the birth canal, and even then only if it is on our side.  We have a society full of people on drugs, prescription and recreational.  And we are all victims.  We all believe that we are deserving of having this beautiful and perfect life, no matter what we do.

Guns are not the problem.  Guns are a tool that is mis-used to carry out someone's evil ambitions.  We have to get to the root of the issue.  What is wrong with people who would do such a thing?

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14 minutes ago, JBizzle said:

Virginia shooting was a handgun.

 

So a hand gun kills 3 people at a Virginia University....The liberals go into assault weapons ban talk......

Yet in Chicago--where gun laws are strict, 6 people were killed & 28 people shot. Liberals don't care about people....they care about power and taking your power away. If they get assault weapons, they'll come for the next set of guns that trigger their fancy. 

The only way to counteract a tyrannical government is to be able to fight back, if they get the guns, they don't get a fair fight. Liberals want a war, I just don't think they know which one is coming.....

 

https://news.wttw.com/2022/11/14/6-people-killed-separate-shootings-over-weekend-chicago-police

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2 hours ago, Monte1076 said:

There's a bunch of vague definitions on that page. 

Case in point:

What class? Semi-automatics (even pistols) can do this. And again, no real definition. If someone has a semi-automatic pistol, and five or six magazines, and they're proficient enough, that is, depending on magazine capacity, between 45 and 54 rounds that they have at their disposal.

"They look scary!"

They make this statement, but don't really provide any supporting evidence.

Where are these studies? What's the methodology used? Is it sound? What did they use as a control?

Which party has fought tooth and nail to prevent extensive research? I knew you were only looking for something to attack, not refute, so good for you, AGAIN. 

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6 minutes ago, BarryLaverty said:

Which party has fought tooth and nail to prevent extensive research? I knew you were only looking for something to attack, not refute, so good for you, AGAIN. 

There is mountains of data collected by the NRA that you libnuts refuse to acknowledge........SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED!!!!!!!!

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4 minutes ago, Youngcoach123 said:

Her personal stake is limited to if she returns fire or not. 

@BarryLaverty I see your confused. Let me be clear. Being helpless and demanding others to forgo their god given right to protect themselves and to be helpless with you is not a solution to her personal stake. A personal stake should require personal actions. Not demanding from others for her sake. 

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5 minutes ago, Youngcoach123 said:

@BarryLaverty I see your confused. Let me be clear. Being helpless and demanding others to forgo their god given right to protect themselves and to be helpless with you is not a solution to her personal stake. A personal stake should require personal actions. Not demanding from others for her sake. 

Your 'solution' was that Gabi Giffords, while at a campaign event, should have blasted away back at someone who killed others and shot her? Am I reading that right? 

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1 hour ago, BarryLaverty said:

Which party has fought tooth and nail to prevent extensive research? I knew you were only looking for something to attack, not refute, so good for you, AGAIN. 

YOUR article cites studies, does it not? Further, it's been shown that at least one study that I know of had, for lack of a better way of putting it, fictional controls, and they did the comparison to the fictional control.

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Just now, PepeSilvia said:

Don't blame the whole nation like your onion BS.....when the dimnut cesspools are removed we are FAR down the list of nations on gun violence........that in itself PROVES gun control does not work..........

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