WASHINGTON – Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz both cast themselves as staunch Second Amendment supporters. Both enjoy A+ ratings from the NRA.
But as they’ve done after other mass shootings, the Texas Republicans have taken on dramatically different roles since the Uvalde school rampage.
Cruz has come out swinging, deflecting calls for gun control after mass murder at an elementary school by demanding fewer doors at schools, and more locks, bulletproof glass and armed police.
“Their real goal is disarming America,” he asserted to the NRA three days after an 18-year-old with an AR-15 killed 19 children and two teachers at a Uvalde elementary school. “Their so-called solutions wouldn’t have stopped these mass murders and they know this. … That son of a bitch passed a background check.”
Cornyn, as always, has been less of a pugilist but no less adamant that curbing access to firearms for law-abiding Americans is a nonstarter.
After other mass shootings, he’s helped to craft narrow but broadly palatable measures, like addressing flaws in the database used to stop felons from buying guns. Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell entrusted him to be his eyes and ears in a small bipartisan group seeking common ground – confident that Cornyn will block any significant rollbacks in gun rights.
“To do nothing would make the party look insensitive and out of touch,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political scientist, noting that Republicans can’t afford to alienate suburban voters who support modest gun control measures, and are at least as intent on keeping children safe as protecting gun rights.
“Cornyn is smart enough to know that navigating the politics after a gun massacre is delicate, and that delay can be your friend,” he said.
But Cornyn’s ambition is to get McConnell’s job at some point. He’s thinking strategically about the party’s prospects.
Cruz wants to be president. He’s focused on scoring points, and “legislating is not the best way to get him to his goals. He is a political grandstander and it’s extremely lucrative for him politically. … He can rile the base and that opens up wallets,” Rottinghaus said.
The two Texans are among the top recipients in the Senate of political contributions from gun rights interests. Cruz has received $749,000 since his election in 2012, according to Open Secrets, while Cornyn has gotten $306,000 since his election in 2002.
Cornyn is responsible for the most significant, albeit narrowly tailored, gun-related law in decades – the Fix NICS Act, authored after a massacre that left 26 people dead at a Sutherland Springs church on Nov. 5, 2017.
The gunman had been convicted of domestic violence while in the Air Force. But the service failed to upload his records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, used to screen gun buyers.
The law imposes new reporting requirements on federal agencies and provides incentives for states to improve their own reporting.
In less than four years, a Justice Department report found, the number of records in the three databases searched with every NICS check increased by 11.5 million – up 11.4%.
It’s a huge point of pride for Cornyn, who says the law has saved lives. Advocates for tighter gun laws characterize Fix NICS as important but far short of what’s needed.
Either way, Fix NICS holds clues to how Cornyn will navigate negotiations that began last week, said Robert Spitzer, author of six books on gun policy and a professor emeritus at SUNY Cortland.
“There are moments where he has seen a compromise, even a small-bore one, through to fruition and other instances where he pulled the rug out and that was the end of it,” Spitzer said. “It suggests that either option is a possibility now.”
Playing for time?
Gun debates in Congress follow a familiar pattern.
A mass shooting shocks the country and sparks cries for action. Time passes and other issues come to the forefront. Pressure fades.
Cornyn negotiated last year with Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn, over the legal definition of a gun dealer, with an eye toward addressing a loophole that allows some gun buyers to skirt the background check system.
Gun Owners of America, which looks down on the NRA as too willing to compromise, sent email blasts accusing Cornyn of trying to betray gun owners and pass universal background checks.
Murphy said the talks broke down because Cornyn was unwilling to back proposals any tougher than the current law.
The Texan remains wary of backlash.
When conservative radio host Joe “Pags” Pagliarulo tweeted last week that he’d heard Cornyn is open to new restrictions on guns, the senator was quick to offer assurance: “Not gonna happen.”
On Sunday, 250 self-described conservatives and gun rights supporters lauded Cornyn in a full page ad in The Dallas Morning News for engaging with Murphy over red flag laws and expanded background checks.
They also urged him to support raising the purchase age to 21 – something that Murphy, speaking Sunday on CNN, indicated Cornyn hasn’t been willing to entertain.
But, Murphy does see a potential deal to boost funds for mental health and school security, and for so-called red flag laws intended to keep guns out of the hands of troubled or dangerous individuals
And, he said, Cornyn is open to adding juvenile records to background checks for gun buyers under 21. The Uvalde killer was 18. So was the shooter who went to a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., on May 14, targeting Black people and killing 10.
“We’re not going to do everything I want,” Murphy said, conceding there’s not enough Senate support for an assault-weapons ban or universal background checks, “But, right now, people in this country want us to make progress.”
Two-thirds of Americans support a ban on assault-style weapons, according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll conducted shortly after Uvalde.
Even more (88%) support background checks on every gun sale and banning gun purchases before age 21 (79%).
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has warned Republicans against stalling.
But that’s exactly what Rottinghaus sees as Cornyn’s assignment and inclination.
“The half-life of attention to these mass shootings is sadly short,” he said. “He doesn’t want the narrative that Republicans are once again fighting against common sense gun reform.”
Cornyn has been a reliable advocate for the gun rights agenda.
In 2005, Cornyn backed a bill shielding firearm manufacturers, distributors and dealers from civil lawsuits. President George W. Bush signed it into law.
Such lawsuits, Cornyn said at the time, are meant to “drive the gun industry out of business, holding legitimate, law-abiding manufacturers and dealers liable for the intentional and criminal acts of others.”
The senator has been a leading voice for concealed-carry reciprocity – requiring states to accept permits from other states, a top NRA priority. He likens it to driver’s licenses. Gun control advocates point out that state standards differ, and say the reciprocity would play to the lowest common denominator.
He did buck the NRA somewhat with a bill requiring federal authorities to alert state and local law enforcement when a would-be gun buyer fails a background check. Only 13 states require their own background checks.
Cornyn framed it as an extension of Fix NICS and it became law in March with Biden’s signature as part of the Violence Against Women Act.
The NRA didn’t support it but downplayed the impact.
Clashing agendas
In a rare prime-time address to the nation Thursday night, Biden made an emotional plea for Congress to resurrect a ban on military-style rifles such as AK-47s and AR-15s that expired in 2004 or, at the very least, raise the age to buy semi-automatic weapons from 18 to 21.
He called for broadening background checks for gun buyers, repealing gun makers’ immunity from liability, and addressing “the mental health crisis” associated with the violence.
“It’s time for the Senate to do something,” he said.
Hardly any of those ideas has a chance in the 50-50 Senate, where Democrats would need support from at least 10 Republicans.
“Once again he chose to double down on hard-left divisive politics,” Cruz told Sean Hannity on Fox News after Biden’s speech.
“What happened in Texas is horrific, and anyone with any heartbeat is horrified,” he said, complaining that instead of saying, “Let’s unite behind law enforcement to stop criminals, to keep our kids safe,” Democrats “immediately demagogue and say the solution is to take away your weapons. The solution is to disarm law-abiding citizens.”
Cruz won his seat five weeks before the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., the only school shooting deadlier than Uvalde: 28 dead, including 20 children.
Moments after being sworn in by Biden, then vice president, Cruz vowed to do his utmost to stymie an effort led by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein to ban semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips.
“Gun registries have been used as a preface to confiscation,” he said that first day as a senator. “It’s a tragedy, but it’s not a tragedy that should be answered by restricting the constitutional rights of all Americans.”
Three weeks later he was grilling Feinstein at a hearing, cross-examination style, over whether she would as casually shred the First and Fourth Amendments, and theatrically demonstrating how minor modifications can turn a hunting rifle into a so-called assault weapon.
Democrats fumed, calling him arrogant.
He was just getting started.
With Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Cruz pushed an alternative response to Newtown: $300 million to beef up school security; authority to confiscate guns from felons, fugitives and people with serious mental illness; directing the Justice Department to prosecute felons who try to buy guns illegally; and an audit to ensure that felony convictions are reported to the background database.
Nine Democrats supported Grassley-Cruz, but it fell short. The Texan says the bill would have saved scores of lives at Uvalde and Sante Fe schools, and in Sutherland Springs.
“Most people don’t know that the Democrats have been blocking more funding for school safety for years,” Cruz said on his podcast last week.
In February 2018, after a gunman killed 17 people at a Parkland, Fla., high school, Cruz again pointed to Grassley-Cruz as a missed opportunity.
“The left’s answer is always, always, always restrict Second Amendment rights from law-abiding citizens,” he told the Conservative Political Action Conference a week after Parkland.
Cruz is likewise consistent. After each rampage, in Texas or elsewhere, Cruz has used his perch to swat away gun control measures, ruling out anything to make it harder to obtain any sort of gun – except for felons, fugitives and people with dangerous mental illness.
“This is not the first time I’ve been on the ground where some psychopath has carried out an act of mass murder. … We’ve had way too many of these,” he said on his podcast last week.
As Texas solicitor general – the state’s top appeals lawyer, under then-attorney general Greg Abbott – Cruz had assembled a coalition of 31 states to oppose a handgun ban in the District of Columbia. The friend of the court brief he crafted urged the justices to acknowledge something the Supreme Court had never done before, that the “individual right to keep and bear arms” is fundamental.
The court agreed, making the 2008 ruling in District of Columbia vs. Heller a spectacular win, and assuring ovations for Cruz at NRA conventions for years.
“The elites who dominate our culture tell us that firearms lie at the root of the problem,” he said in Houston, where he blamed the “unspeakable acts of evil” in Uvalde on cultural malaise.
He cited “broken families, absent fathers, declining church attendance, social media bullying,” drug abuse and video games that desensitize players to murder.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans share the view that mass shootings reflect broader social ills, according to a YouGov survey conducted after Uvalde.
“It’s a lot easier to moralize about guns,” Cruz said.
