Ted Cruz Vows to Lead Opposition to Dianne Feinstein’s Gun-Grab Bill

Posted on | January 2, 2013 | 28 Comments

Incoming Texas Sen. Ted Cruz vowed Wednesday to “speak out loudly” against anti-gun legislation proposed by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and supported by President Obama.

Cruz said it was “wrong, cynical and misguided” for liberals to “exploit” this month’s shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, as an excuse to promote legislation that he denounced as “unconstitutional.” The Texas Republican told a conference call of bloggers and journalists that the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the “right to keep and bear arms” is an “integral part of the Bill of Rights.”

Just two days after the Dec. 14 shooting that killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary, Feinstein said on NBC’s Meet the Press that she would introduce a bill to “ban the sale, the transfer, the transportation and the possession” of certain semi-automatic weapons, as well as of “big clips, drums or strips of more than 10 bullets.” Feinstein was a leading proponent of the so-called “assault weapons ban” that Congress and then-President Clinton enacted in 1994, but which expired in 2004.

Cruz said Feinstein’s bill would “create a national firearms registry,” a measure he denounced as having historically been a prelude to the confiscation of firearms. He said “everyone was horrified” by the Newtown massacre, but said he would oppose “misguided policy” such Feinstein’s proposal that he said would in effect strip citizens of their gun ownership rights.

Strongly backed by the Tea Party movement, Cruz was elected by a landslide margin in Texas after winning a hard-fought GOP primary, and is viewed as a rising star among conservative Republicans. He said the GOP “got clobbered” in this year’s election because they did “a singularly poor job” of articulating their party’s core principles.

Cruz said those who are writing the Tea Party’s “obituary” are mistaken, and predicted a “strong year” for the GOP in 2004 if “Republicans stand for principle” — something he said they failed to do in recent budget negotations with President Obama.

Cruz called the “fiscal cliff” legislation that Congress passed yesterday “a really lousy deal” and said he “would have voted no” on the bill if he had been in office. “It was a mistake for Republicans to be complicit” in raising taxes, Cruz said, adding that the deal “did nothing to solve the problem” of a “federal budget [that] is out of control.”

Category: Constitution, Senate, Texas

Comments

28 Responses to “Ted Cruz Vows to Lead Opposition to Dianne Feinstein’s Gun-Grab Bill”

Donald Borsch Jr.
January 2nd, 2013 @ 4:08 pm

Those damn TEA Party extremists. Don’t they know we have an agenda and a purpose to fundamentally transform this failed America into a Socialist Utopia?

This Ted Cruz is mucking things up. He should know his role and simply acquiesce to the Honorable Goddess Feinstein, and leave well enough alone.

Kill ’em all, er, I mean, um, bad TEA Party people!
Stand Your Ground and Fight – You Have No Duty to Retreat From These Bastards, Even If Deadly Force Is Necessary to Protect Your Life and Liberty | Daily Pundit
January 2nd, 2013 @ 4:15 pm

[…] Necessary to Protect Your Life and Liberty Posted on January 2, 2013 1:15 pm by Bill Quick Ted Cruz Vows to Lead Opposition to Dianne Feinstein’s Gun-Grab Bill : The Other McCain Incoming Texas Sen. Ted Cruz vowed Wednesday to “speak out loudly” against anti-gun legislation […]
Jackie Wellfonder - Raging Against the Rhetoric – Cruz Speaks Out – Loudly
January 2nd, 2013 @ 4:17 pm

[…] more at The Other McCain, updates forthcoming. Share this:More Gun Control, Ted Cruz Diane Feinstein, […]
smitty
January 2nd, 2013 @ 4:18 pm

The Texas Republican told a conference call of bloggers

Wait, an elected member of a Congress deigning to notice Tea Party hobbits? Shirley, you jes’ pullin’ our legs.
orbitup
January 2nd, 2013 @ 4:32 pm

Great! I doubt Dewhurst would have been so vocal.
Scoob
January 2nd, 2013 @ 5:11 pm

Wow!!! A leader?? We have a few (not in leadership), but we definitely can use more!!
jsn2
January 2nd, 2013 @ 6:18 pm

Cruz is Cuban (heritage), smart and can articulate conservative positions that dumb Dem voters can understand which will eventually make him the target of a Progressive Media smear campaign.
tballard
January 2nd, 2013 @ 6:30 pm

Boy he got that right about a “singularly poor job of articulating their party’s core principles.” Republican “leadership” is so worried about scaring off people that all they push is watered-down pablum. It’s time to get a spine or get out. MOLON LABE
SDN
January 2nd, 2013 @ 6:58 pm

Cruz IS a TEA Party Hobbit.
Dustin
January 2nd, 2013 @ 8:18 pm

Agreed. I’m proud to have supported Senator Cruz.
Dustin
January 2nd, 2013 @ 8:19 pm

The etch a sketch types don’t realize that their waffling isn’t clever at all. It makes them look like liars. Stand with convictions, and many will support you even if they don’t agree with you on everything, because you are a man or woman of principle. It’s not very complicated.
Edward Glynn Palmer Jr.
January 2nd, 2013 @ 8:37 pm

http://theothermccain.com/2013/01/02/ted-cruz-vows-to-lead-opposition-to-diane-feinsteins-gun-grab-bill/
Owen L Skaggs
January 2nd, 2013 @ 10:30 pm

http://theothermccain.com/2013/01/02/ted-cruz-vows-to-lead-opposition-to-diane-feinsteins-gun-grab-bill/
McGehee
January 2nd, 2013 @ 11:50 pm

The etch a sketch types don’t realize that their waffling isn’t clever at all. It makes them look like liars.

The resemblance is no accident.
Conservative Wolfpack
January 3rd, 2013 @ 8:09 am

http://theothermccain.com/2013/01/02/ted-cruz-vows-to-lead-opposition-to-diane-feinsteins-gun-grab-bill/
Bob Belvedere
January 3rd, 2013 @ 8:17 am

Frodo Lives!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frodo_Lives!
Michael Mattei
January 3rd, 2013 @ 10:45 am

You doubt??? No way Dewhurst would have uttered a peep-he was another RINO
Charles Doughtie
January 3rd, 2013 @ 11:23 am

” – – and predicted a “strong year” for the GOP in 2004 – – ” ?

Don’t call me Shirley.
Robert Boilard
January 3rd, 2013 @ 11:59 am

http://theothermccain.com/2013/01/02/ted-cruz-vows-to-lead-opposition-to-diane-feinsteins-gun-grab-bill/
??Von-Von??
January 3rd, 2013 @ 2:25 pm

Ted Cruz will soon be a self-agenda lobbying more rich than he already is hypocrite. Please!!
??Von-Von??
January 3rd, 2013 @ 2:30 pm

Cruz will make himself a joke sooner than later like the rest of the Texas Legislature public officials……
Ted Cruz Bloggers Conference Call
January 3rd, 2013 @ 8:36 pm

[…] Ted Cruz Vows to Lead Opposition to Dianne Feinstein’s Gun-Grab Bill […]
Dan B
January 4th, 2013 @ 12:06 am

What part of “shall not be infringed” does Feinstein not understand? Protect our 2nd Ammendment Ted.
Morning Reads for Friday, January 4, 2013 — Peach Pundit
January 4th, 2013 @ 6:01 am

[…] get you expelled by spring break? – Who needs due diligence by Congress when you have the DHS? – Sen. Ted Cruz to lead fight against Dianne Feinstein’s gun control bill. – Dictator Death Watch. Francisco […]
Concerned Citizen
January 4th, 2013 @ 7:49 am

Only a month after their constituents had given them new terms, gun control advocates in the Senate have made it clear that they will lead to crusade to implement:

* Gun bans on semiautomatic firearms and magazines;

* An effective ban on gun shows;

* A ban on private gun sales, without going through a gun dealer; and,

* Changes in the Senate rules which would allow them to ban guns with a mere 50 Senate votes.

This last proposal is particularly insidious. Gun grabbers are not going to be able to get 60 votes to break a Senate filibuster of gun control. But, with the help of fake “pro-gun” senators, they may be able to get 50.

So the question of whether anti-gun senators will need 50 votes or 60 votes will determine whether gun control will be slammed through and passed into law.

This brings me to the “nuclear option.”

This is a trick which anti-gunners intend to use the first day of the Senate session in order to obliterate the Senate rules and clear the way for 50-vote passage of gun control.

Your vote on the “nuclear option” may be the most important gun-related vote you cast during the 113th Congress. It may be the difference between whether anti-gunners can secure Senate passage of gun bans, clip bans, gun show bans, and bans on private gun sales.

Anti-gunners will try to tell you that the Senate is just following its precedents.

But that’s a bald-faced lie. As Democrats made clear during the Bush administration when the Republicans were contemplating the “nuclear option,” the nuclear option has been threatened, but the trigger has never been pulled.

Anti-gunners will try to tell you that the “nuclear option” can only be invoked on the first day.

That’s a lie. Senate Rule 5, Paragraph 2, provides that the Senate rules continue from one Congress to the next, unless changed by 67 votes (needed to break a filibuster of rules changes). If the Senate can obliterate Rule 5 by 50 votes by brute force, it can obliterate any rule at any time by 50 votes by brute force.

So I am writing you to insist that you vote against the “nuclear option,” and to let you know that the vote on the “nuclear option” will be the most important gun control vote of the 113th Congress.
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January 5th, 2013 @ 2:06 pm

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James Cochrane
January 5th, 2013 @ 2:53 pm

http://theothermccain.com/2013/01/02/ted-cruz-vows-to-lead-opposition-to-diane-feinsteins-gun-grab-bill/
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January 16th, 2013 @ 5:21 am

[…] Hear Ted Cruz! Ted Cruz Vows to Lead Opposition to Dianne Feinstein?s Gun-Grab Bill : The Other McCain […]