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The two Texas senators, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, hold similar positions on gun law. Both have received “A +” ratings from the political arm of the National Rifle Association. Both have opposed efforts to tighten restrictions on firearms, including a ban on assault rifles and limiting sales of high-capacity magazines.
But following Tuesday’s mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the second deadliest K-12 shooting in U.S. history, Cornyn and Cruz have played markedly different tones as they take on contrasting roles. .
Cornyn, 70, the state’s top senator, was scheduled to speak at the NRA’s annual meeting on Friday in Houston. He withdrew before the shooting for personal reasons that required him to be in Washington, a spokesman said.
Cruz, 51, went ahead with plans to speak at the event on Friday. In his remarks, he described the Uvalde shooting as “the ultimate nightmare for all parents” and accused Democrats of seeking to use the massacre as a pretext to “disarm Americans.”
“Ultimately, as we all know, what stops the bad guys is the good guys,” he said.
Cruz also praised the “border Tactical patrol unit that finally killed the UValde monster, ”but did not address the central questions in response to the authorities’ shooting, including the fact that gunmen waited outside the classrooms for more than 50 minutes while the shooter was still inside.
Local and state lawmakers on both sides of the aisle commented on the events surrounding a mass shooting at a school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24th. (Video: Adriana Usero / The Washington Post)
A day earlier, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Had called on Cornyn to negotiate with Democrats on possible but not likely gun legislation, replacing the former GOP leadership member. Senate.
“Maybe that will provide some impetus” for the engagement, Cornyn told reporters at the Capitol on Thursday. “That’s horrible. It’s hard to imagine anything that could be worse than parents worried about the safety of their children going to school.”
Meanwhile, Cruz, meanwhile, was making headlines for fleeing a British journalist after being asked why the mass shootings take place “only in America.” The exchange took place when Cruz was attending a vigil in Texas for the 19 children and two adults killed in the massacre.
Pressed by gun restrictions, Cruz said this week, “That doesn’t work. It’s not effective. It doesn’t prevent crime.”
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After the mass shootings of previous years, both Cruz and Cornyn have issued statements that have almost always omitted the mention of weapons. But Cornyn, a former Texas attorney general and state Supreme Court judge who has long courted and enjoyed strong support from gun organizations, has been open to work in the past. through the aisle in certain gun-related legislation.
Cornyn is the lead author of the bill that the NRA considers one of its top priorities in Congress: the Constitutional Concealed Transportation Reciprocity Act, which would allow gun owners who have permission to carry a concealed weapon to the their own state do it in any other state, too.
While gun rights advocates say the bill is necessary to safeguard gun owners from a mosaic of different state laws, gun control advocates argue that the bill would effectively destroy the laws. states that restrict hidden transportation.
However, Cornyn has been a frequent and volunteer interlocutor for Democrats on possible arms deals. In fact, he was the architect of the only remotely significant gun-related legislation that emerged from the Senate over the past decade, the 2018 NICS Fixed Act.
In November 2017, a former Air Force aviator opened fire on a Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, killing more than two dozen people. The Air Force was scrutinized after it was discovered that the gunman, Devin Patrick Kelley, had been convicted of domestic assault, but that the military had never reported this conviction to the FBI by the National Verification System. of Instant Criminal Record, as required. Had they done so, Kelley would not have been able to pass a background check and probably “would have been deterred from carrying out the Church shooting,” a federal judge wrote last year.
In the months following the Sutherland Springs shooting, Cornyn teamed up with Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, both of Connecticut, to draft and push the Fix NICS bill to strengthen this information requirement in the verification system. FBI background and to create financial incentives. for states to do so. Then-President Donald Trump signed the bill in March 2018.
The bill was carefully written and submitted as a strengthening of the current law, not as an extension of it.
Murphy said when it was presented that “much more needs to be done,” but that the bill “represents the strongest update to the background check system in a decade and provides the basis for more commitment in the future.” .
Although some hardline groups like Gun Owners of America were strongly opposed to the bill, the NRA silently supported it, noting that “it would not add any new disqualification to federal law” and was ” totally concerned about enforcing the current bans. ” ”
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“After the tragedy in Sutherland Springs, I promised this community that it would do what it could so that no family, school, or congregation would have to go through it again,” Cornyn said in a statement at the time. “While this is not the only solution, I am confident that this bill will save lives. I am grateful to the many advocates and families affected by the armed violence who came together behind this effort to finally fix and strengthen the system. criminal background check “.
It would not, however, be the last time a Texas family, school, or congregation suffered a mass shooting. Less than two months later, in May 2018, a 17-year-old student with a shotgun and a gun shot himself in Santa Fe High School on the outskirts of Houston, killing eight students and two teachers. And in August 2019, a gunman who later said he was targeting “Mexicans” drove to El Paso and opened fire on a Walmart, killing 23 people.
Cornyn was a key advocate for another federal background check bill, which would require the Department of Justice to notify local law enforcement of a failed 24-hour background check by to further research. This measure attracted bipartisan co-sponsors and was included in the re-authorization law of the Violence Against Women Act that President Biden signed in March.
But another recent effort, launched last year after Democrats won a majority in the Senate and threatened to pass more expansive gun control bills, failed.
It aimed to expand the universe of federal background checks by clarifying the definition of who should register as a federal firearms dealer and therefore process background checks. This would somehow close what is often called the “crack of the gun show” or “crack of the private seller” that has been exploited by some mass shooters, such as the gunman who killed six people in 2019. west Texas.
Cornyn and Murphy devoted themselves to the issue in March 2021 and expressed optimism that there was an agreement in sight. But some gun advocacy groups told members that Cornyn was preparing to sell them behind closed doors.
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“If John Cornyn, who represents the state of TEXAS, is already considering stabbing gun owners in the back, then you know we’re really in a DIRECT situation,” read an email from Gun Owners of America. .
In June, Murphy told reporters that simply would not come to an agreement: what Cornyn was willing to cede would not “significantly increase the number of arms sales that require background checks.” And so died the last significant bipartisan talks on weapons in the Senate, until this week.
“I will not take anything off the table except to deny their constitutional rights to people who are law-abiding citizens,” Cornyn said Thursday.
Unlike Cornyn, Cruz has taken a more combative approach in the days following the Uvalde massacre. The Texas junior senator ran unsuccessfully for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination and has hinted that he could run for office in 2024. Cornyn, the former Senate Republican whip was re-elected in 2020 and has shown no ambition beyond the possible successor to McConnell as the Senate GOP leader someday.
As attorney general for Texas in 2008, Cruz addressed 31 states in an amicus brief against the District of Columbia’s handgun ban. And after joining the Senate in 2013, he often promoted his efforts to oppose Democrat-led arms control proposals spurred by mass shootings.
Last year, Cruz joined more than two dozen Republicans in the House to call on the Biden administration to lift sanctions on ammunition imported from Russia, according to a letter obtained by The Washington Post. The group accused the administration of using sanctions as a means of enacting arms control measures and argued that it would aggravate the shortage of ammunition.
“Until we receive a response, we must assume that this ban is an attempt to restrict the right of Americans to bear arms, preventing Congress from implementing arms control,” they wrote.
On Wednesday, while attending a vigil for the victims of Uvalde, Cruz reprimanded a British journalist who had asked him for answers about why mass shootings are a problem in America.
“Why only in America? Why is this American exceptionalism so horrible? asked journalist Mark Stone of Sky News in Britain.
“You know, I’m sorry you think American exceptionality is horrible,” Cruz replied. “You have your political agenda. God loves you.”