Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz was confronted by a local gun reform activist while dining at an upscale restaurant on Friday night following his speech at the National Rifle Association convention in Houston.
In his speech before the NRA, Cruz blasted the slaughter at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two teachers dead as “evil” while arguing against gun control.
“We must not react to evil and tragedy by abandoning the Constitution or infringing on the rights of our law-abiding citizens.”
During a dinner break at Uptown Sushi, Benjamin Hernandez, an activist and part of Indivisible Houston, a nonpartisan advocacy organization, approached Cruz for a photo. In a video shared on Twitter, Hernandez asked to take a picture with Cruz before challenging him on background checks following the mass shooting earlier in the week.
“Is that so hard?” he asked.
When Cruz realized he had been duped, security came in to remove Hernandez, who yelled, “Nineteen children died! That’s on your hands! Ted Cruz, that’s on your hands!”
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Cruz, like former President Donald Trump, is considered a potential presidential candidate in 2024 and railed against Democrats’ calls for universal background checks for gun purchases and bans of assault-style weapons and instead pointed to broken families, declining church attendance, social media bullying, and video games as the real problems.
“Tragedies like the event of this week are a mirror forcing us to ask hard questions, demanding that we see where our culture is failing,” he said.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden plan to travel to Texas on Sunday and “grieve with the community that lost 21 lives in the horrific” shooting at Robb Elementary School, said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
