WATCH: Ted Cruz Punches Back At Hecklers On Gun Control: ‘Violence Doesn’t Stop Violence!’
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) dealt with multiple hecklers while speaking at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, Texas on Saturday.
The senator covered a variety of topics, including 2024, and when he was speaking on gun control, he responded directly to two heckling activists in the crowd.
“When you think of gun control, there are lots of people on the left who say, let’s just get rid of all the guns. What that would mean is 500,000 to a million more people are victims of crime, are victims of rape, of murder and assault,” Cruz said, then beginning to tell the story of Sutherland Springs resident Stephen Willeford. Willeford used an Ar-15 to stop a mass shooting at church near his home.
Before Cruz could completely tell Willeford’s story, a protester from the crowd shouted, “AR-15!”
“Okay. Good. Let me address the Ar-15,” Cruz said, jumping back into Willeford’s story in which he shot a gunman wearing body armor.
“He stopped the murderer from killing more people … the weapon Stephen used to stop that was an AR-15,” Cruz said.
The senator argued “defensive uses” of firearms need to be weighed against “criminals uses of firearms” when discussing how to stop gun violence.
“Look, if we sit down reasonably and say, how can we stop crimes? You would rationally say well let’s look at both the criminal uses of firearms, but also the defensive firearms that stopped crimes —” Cruz said before being interrupted again, this time by a second protester.
“Violence doesn’t solve violence!” the second heckler yelled.
“Okay, it actually is the only that does,” Cruz said.
Shaking his head in disbelief, the senator took aim at Democrats again.
“Violence doesn’t solve violence?” he asked. “Look, that’s actually why the left wants to abolish the police and it’s why you see murder rates skyrocketing.”
Over the last 15 minutes or so of his talk, there were multiple such interactions with people in the audience.
When Cruz spoke more specifically about school shootings and encouraged more armed security on campuses there were some boos from the audience.
“You guys can instead sing Kumbaya with them and hope they’ll just stop, but what you’re proposing doesn’t work,” he said before another protester from the crowd cut through.
“18-year-old boys don’t need an AR-15!” the person shouted.
Watch the clips above, via The Texas Tribune Festival 2022.
