On Wednesday’s broadcast of Laura Ingraham’s radio program, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz responded to critics who say Republicans should not threaten to filibuster an upcoming gun control package.
Cruz argued the current gun laws are not being enforced, and said in 2010 there were over 15,000 “felons and fugitives who tried to illegally purchase guns.” According to the Texas Republican, of those 15,000, the Obama Justice Department only prosecuted 44.
“I think that is completely unacceptable,” Cruz said. “I think we need to be devoting law enforcement resources to prosecuting violent felons who are trying to get guns. But instead of doing that, what they’re trying to do is pass laws that would take away the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. And I think that’s the wrong approach. I think it’s a political approach. It’s not designed to fix the problem of stopping violent criminals from committing horrific crimes.”
Cruz also responded to criticisms from his Republican colleague Sen. John McCain and the Wall Street Journal over a potential filibustering of the proposed gun control laws.
“I think the criticism has been silly,” he said. “The critics have said ‘we need to have a debate, we need to have a vote.’ We are having a debate and we are having a vote. We’re going to have a vote on cloture tomorrow and we are debating it. The only question is, ‘what should the vote threshold be for legislation that would violate potentially the Bill of Rights?’ I think it should be a minimum of 60 votes. And I’ll point out that a lot of Republicans saying they are happy to vote to shut off debate and move to the bill — they don’t even know what the bill contains. I mean it’s reminiscent of Nancy Pelosi talking about Obamacare, saying we have to pass it to find out what’s in it.”
Cruz also predicted that the Democrats’ push for more gun regulation would ultimately backfire, and may even result in a Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate.
“I think the president has shown he is willing to demagogue an issue and I think it is ultimately going to backfire politically,” Cruz said. “In fact, in my view as a result of their onslaught of the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms, I think there’s going to be a significant political consequence in 2014. I think as a result of this fight President Obama is picking, I think the stage is set for Republicans to take control of the United States Senate — because of this fight right now, because of coming after the right to keep and bear arms of peaceful, law-abiding Americans.”
“I think a number of red state Democrats who are up for reelection in 2014 are going to lose their seats, and I think they should,” he added.
