“Sutherland Springs, the worst church shooting in U.S. history, a small town outside of San Antonio. … If Grassley-Cruz had passed, there’s a very good chance Sutherland Springs never would have happened, because the criminal who had committed a felony was ineligible to buy guns. The Obama Air Force never reported his conviction to the background database, and when he tried to illegally buy the gun, his conviction wasn’t there. He was allowed to buy the gun, and he murdered those people. If Grassley-Cruz had passed, they would have prosecuted him. They would’ve put him in jail, and he would have been in a jail cell instead of in that beautiful sanctuary.”
— Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), in an interview on “Hannity” on Fox News, March 23
In the wake of a mass shooting in Boulder, Colo., Cruz says legislation he offered in 2013 could have prevented one of the deadliest such events in U.S. history, except Democrats “filibustered it, demanded 60 votes.”
The claim is highly misleading.
The man who committed the 2017 mass shooting in a Texas church, killing 26 and wounding 22, passed federal background checks and was able to purchase firearms because of a string of errors at the Air Force that Cruz’s legislation would not have prevented. Let’s take a look. Continue reading.