I see Texas's Sen. Ted Cruz has gone from telling Joe Biden jokes while Biden was burying his son to telling gun jokes while a South Carolina church buries the victims of our nation's latest
mass murder.
"You know the great thing about the state of Iowa is, I'm pretty sure you all define gun control the same way we do in Texas -- hitting what you aim at," Cruz said at a town hall meeting Friday in Red Oak.
Ha ha, oh that's so funny. Guns are so great, you guys. Even blonde women like guns.
"My wife, Heidi, who is a petite, 5'2 California blonde, she was standing at the tripod unloading the full machine gun with a pink baseball cap that said 'armed and fabulous,'" he said.
I'm not sure Donald Trump can compete with this level of classy. Ted Cruz just oozes presidential material, doesn't he? Well, he oozes something. We'll have to wait for the lab analysis before we can determine what it is.
Cruz seems to be spreading his pro-gun rhetoric with particular vigor in the wake of this particular incident of terrorism. He gave his speech at an Iowa shooting range in a room adorned with large posters of guns, which you probably know about because some conservatives are now outraged that it resulted in photographs of exactly that.
So there you go. If you're a politician you could go two ways, after a far-right racist executes nine black Americans in a prominent black American church. You could spend your energy condemning racism and the social and political culture that still embraces racism and coddles racism, perhaps devote your speeches to thoughts on how to someday end this nation's long string of attacks in which black Americans are killed in their churches or on the streets as segregationist "message" to "the black race." Or you could clench your sweaty little fists and shout that this latest execution of black Americans isn't going to be used as an excuse to take your guns away.
It depends on whether your thoughts lie with the victims or with the guns, and whether you think the lesson here is that it is far too easy for any single American to commit their very own mass murders, or that those murdered people are just the necessary price to be paid for you being able to freely hit what you aim at. When you hear of children murdered in a Newtown school or Charleston residents murdered while praying in their church, does your hand reflexively reach for your heart, or your waistband?