Last month, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) suggested schools could prevent mass shootings by requiring more armed officers like banks.
On Monday, ten days after the senator’s tweet, a gunman with an AR-15 rifle killed five people and wounded at least eight others at the Old National Bank in Louisville, Kentucky. He bought the gun legally, according to authorities.
Cruz – who has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign support from the gun lobby throughout his political career – posted a tweet in the wake of last month’s massacre at a Nashville, Tennessee, private school. The shooter in the incident was also armed with an assault-style rifle, as well as two other firearms, all legally purchased.
“If you go to the bank and deposit money in the bank, there are armed police in the bank. Why? Because we want to protect the money we deposit. Why on earth do we protect our stupid deposits more than our children?” Cruz wrote in a tweet March 31 promoting the “school safety” bill which has been reintroduced.
“Now we have an opportunity to double the number of police officers on campus and keep kids safe,” he said.
Cruz is known for advocating for more guns in the wake of mass shootings. After the horrific Uvalde elementary school massacre in his home state, which left 19 children and two teachers dead, Cruz suggested there should be only “one door in and out of the school” with armed officers guarding it.
Although there were dozens of response officers from local, state and federal agencies in the Uvalde shooting, authorities took more than an hour to take out the gunman, who was also armed with an AR-15-style rifle legally purchased.
The Nashville and Louisville shootings have once again intensified calls from Democrats and gun reform advocates to pass gun control laws, such as “red flag” laws to keep firearms out of the hands of people deemed a danger to themselves or others, bans. in assault weapons and strong background checks.
Cruz was taken down on social media this week for retweeting after the Louisville bank attack.