Ah yes, the media and gun control.
Senator Cruz joined PBS host Tavis Smiley Tuesday. Smiley seized the opportunity to peg Sen. Cruz on gun control.
“To me and to others who’ve seen this, it seemed in bad taste, but maybe that’s my assessment,” Smiley said. “We all know what happened in Charleston the other day, and you were on the campaign trail after this happened, here’s what you said on the campaign trail.”
Smiley then showed Sen. Cruz a clip bearing a HuffPo watermark, dated June 19 when Cruz was addressing a crowd in Iowa. “We need a second amendment, the right to keep and bear arms. You know the great thing about the state of Iowa, I’m pretty sure y’all define ‘gun control’ the same way we do in Texas — hittin’ what you aim at,” Cruz explained as the audience chuckled.
“Gun control is hitting what you aim at. Those comments were made after this tragedy the other day in South Carolina the other day, was that in bad taste?” Smiley asked.
“One of the problems we see in politics is when there’s a tragedy, this should be an opportunity to bring us together,” explained Cruz.
Not content to let the issue pass, Smiley pressed again, “and many of those same people [the people in Charleston] would love to see us get guns off the streets and yet, gun control, for your definition, is hittin’ whatcha aim at.”
“If you look at how you stop crime… you target the bad guys, you target the violent criminals. I think when it comes to violent criminals we should come down on them like a ton of bricks, but I also think we should protect the Constitutional rights of law abiding citizens and I think those are altogether separate.”
And then Sen. Cruz flipped the issue back on Smiley. “You know, it’s easy by the way, for people with a whole lot of money to support gun control. Cause you can live in fancy neighborhoods, you can pay taxes and have the police protect you. But if you’re a single mom living in Anacostia [a notoriously dangerous suburb of Washington D.C.], if you’re taking the subway late at night, if you’ve got tragically a crack house down the street and you’re thinking about protecting your kids, second amendment rights are something real and personal about the right to keep your family safe.”
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