Texas Senator Ted Cruz was reprimanded by a restaurant attendee Friday night after he spoke at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Houston, roughly a four-hour drive from where a mass shooter killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde three days earlier.
“Why does this keep happening?” a visibly shaken restaurant-goer said. “Why did you come here, to the convention, to take blood money? Why — when 19 children died. Nineteen children died! That’s on your head! That’s on your head.”
The senator stood silently, smiled and waved as guards pushed away the enraged, emotional critic.
During his lengthy speech at the convention, Cruz also blamed the murders on everything other than the ease of getting guns as the root cause for the country’s disproportionately high rate of massacres. The arch-conservative politician said declining church attendance, violent video games, prescription drugs, social media bullying and other societal factors were to blame.
Cruz has faced intense backlash since the May 24 shooting for suggesting that “door control” — with schools having one entrance and exit — would help stop mass shootings from taking place. Seth Meyers said on his late-night show that the idea was “insane” and “pathetic,” stemming from the “most depraved people in our politics.”
“Just spitballing here, but maybe run this idea by a fire marshal first and see what they have to say about it,” Meyers sarcastically said. “Because, famously, nothing bad has ever happened when there’s only one way in one way out of a crowded building.”
Democratic Texas congressman Joaquin Castro also had some choice words for his colleague.
“Ted Cruz is just a slave to the gun lobby. And he won’t do anything to solve this problem, and has just made matters worse.” Castro said during an appearance on “The View.” “These are people that have taken millions of dollars from the NRA, and aren’t listening to their constituents.”
