WA few hours after a young man shot dead 19 children and two teachers with a semi-automatic rifle at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Joe Biden turned to the Americans. “When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?” he called out to them. But it wasn’t America’s biggest gun lobby that was the first to resent calls for tougher gun laws.
Prior to Biden’s comments, Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz had opposed “restricting the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.” Stricter gun controls are not effective, Cruz said. The next day, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton bemoaned the Democrats’ “political agenda” of “restricting gun ownership for all.” That would have prevented “nothing”. The list of such statements goes on and on – from Republicans defending America’s right to a gun even before the National Rifle Association (NRA) commented on it.