"Everyone can have all the guns they want, so long as they're not near me."
Ah ha ha ha ha ...
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) plans to take one lucky supporter with him on an upcoming "shooting excursion" as part of a recently launched fundraiser and sweepstakes for his presidential campaign. But there's a catch: the winner may have to endure a background check first.
The caveat is an interesting one given that Cruz helped lead the effort to defeat a 2013 bill that would have expanded background checks for gun sales nationwide.
Oh,
sure, bring that up, just because in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre America was finally so nauseous over America's rampant gun violence that the nation sought to patch up a few of the most egregious gun-buying loopholes—only to be told by Ted Cruz and the National Rifle Association that not even a few classrooms full of your dead kids was worth putting America's most unbalanced assholes through the horrors of a bit more paperwork.
This is different from your average elementary school or movie theater, though, because in this case you're going to have some lucky American shooting at wildlife with Ted Cruz personally, and the people surrounding Ted Cruz want an out in case, quote, that background check reveals the "potential winner could result in a safety or security risk to any person or persons" associated with the event.
As for the rest of America, you're on your own. Ted Cruz will continue to be a stalwart opponent of using background checks to determine if any of the rest of America's fine potential gun-toters pose a "safety or security risk" to their nearby movie theaters, elementary schools, places of worship or general neighborhoods. The difference is that Ted Cruz isn't planning to visit any of those unpleasant places; if and when he does, you can expect the rules to be different.
Because freedoms, and so on.