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

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