Sen. Ted Cruz is one of the more pro-gun lawmakers in the Senate. He’s not someone I expect to back down on the Second Amendment, and that’s a damn good thing.

In the wake of Colorado Springs, Cruz took to Twitter to express his thoughts and address the calls for gun control.

It seems people took issue with that.

Ted Cruz is facing backlash after he condemned the Colorado shootings with a caveat that the killings must not become an “excuse” to take away citizens’ rights under the Second Amendment.

A mass shooting at an an LGBT+ nightclub in Colorado Springs on Saturday left five people dead and injured at least 25.

Mr Cruz tweeted on Sunday: “Heidi and I are praying for the victims & loved ones impacted by the horrific shooting in Colorado Springs. This senseless evil needs to end.

“While Democrats rush to politicize before the facts are fully known, stripping law-abiding citizens of their 2nd Amendment right is wrong and will make us less safe.”

…

One user wrote: “Let me blame others for politicizing as I politicize in my condolences”.

However, let’s be clear, that backlash is completely unwarranted.

First, Cruz was simply addressing the many people who were already politicizing the shooting, such as President Joe Biden who has a notorious habit of calling for an assault weapon ban before we even know what kind of firearm was used.

Others not included in the above quote took issue with Cruz and his pro-Second Amendment stance.

Those are no-less out of line.

For one thing, we already know that a number of gun control laws failed in this instance.

Colorado doesn’t have a statewide assault weapon ban, but it does restrict magazines and has done so since the theater shooting in Aurora. It didn’t stop this shooting.

The state has a red flag law on the books. It didn’t stop this shooting.

The law prohibits those facing felony charges from buying a gun, and he’d been arrested after making a bomb threat in 2021. It didn’t stop this shooting.

Time and time again, gun control laws failed to stop this shooting.

But gun control has prevented law-abiding citizens from buying those magazines lawfully in Colorado. It’s disarmed law-abiding people in Colorado who just made someone a bit nervous. It’s done all that and more time after time.

Cruz simply pointed out the harsh reality that people don’t want to hear in the wake of a mass shooting. What they want to hear is that gun control will be pushed and pushed hard, even if it failed spectacularly. They want people like Cruz to abandon their deeply-held beliefs in exchange for…what? It’s not like any of these people were going to vote for him anyway.

He would get nothing out of the deal.

“But it would stop mass shootings!”

No, it wouldn’t, which is part of why Cruz opposes this nonsense. The same is true of most pro-gun lawmakers. It doesn’t stop mass shootings. It doesn’t make people safer. It does the opposite.

So blasting Cruz for this is nothing more than spoiled, petulant children venting their bile onto someone because they think it makes them bold and powerful. All it really does is betray their profound ignorance of the subject at hand.