Actress and liberal activist Alyssa Milano got quite the earful from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) after she posed a question asking if someone could “cite which passage of the Bible God states it is a God-given right to own a gun.”
Milano was responding to Texas lawmaker Rep. Matt Schaefer, who explained on Twitter why he is refusing to “use the evil acts of a handful of people to diminish the God-given rights of my fellow Texans.”
Schaefer argued gun control remedies would not “stop a person with evil intent.”
An excellent Q, worth considering carefully w/o the snark of Twitter. It is of course not the right to a modern-day firearm that is God-give but rather the right to Life & the right to Liberty. Essential to that right to life is the right to DEFEND your life & your family. 1/x https://t.co/8pjstMGrGB
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 1, 2019
2/x The right to self-defense is recognized repeatedly in the Bible, eg Exodus 22:2: “If a thief is caught breaking in at night & is struck a fatal blow, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed.” (Note, though, verse 3 says it IS murder if during daylight (ie, not self-defense).
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 1, 2019
3/x The Declaration of Independence acknowledges our rights thusly: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 2, 2019
4/x And, for that reason, the Second Amendment provides “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, SHALL NOT be infringed.” It wasn’t to protect people’s ability to hunt, or to shoot target practice, but to defend their lives, their homes & their families.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 2, 2019
5/x Stephen Willeford exercised that fundamental right when he risked his own life to stop the Sutherland Springs murderer, saving countless others as a result.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 2, 2019
6/x St. George Tucker, one of the most important scholars in early America, explained the reasons behind the Second Amendment as follows: “This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty. . . . The right of self defence is the first law of nature....”
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 2, 2019
7/x “...in most govts it has been the study of rulers to confine this right w/in the narrowest limits possible. Wherever...the right...to keep & bear arms is, under any...pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 2, 2019
8/x That’s also why, post Civil War, disarming Black Americans was a critical objective of the KKK, and was memorialized in countless Jim Crow laws—to strip African-Americans of their God-given right to self-defense from violence.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 2, 2019
9/x I’m a Texan. What happened in Midland-Odessa—and El Paso, Santa Fe & Sutherland Springs—was sick, deranged & horrifying. We need to do MUCH more to stop violent criminals & those w/ dangerous mental illness BEFORE they murder & I’m leading the fight in the Senate to do so.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 2, 2019
10/x Playing politics w/ these deranged crimes—and trying to use them as an excuse to violate the constl rights of law-abiding citizens—won’t make anybody safer. Forcible gun confiscation (as some 2020 Dems urge) won’t prevent mass-murders. But it would weaken our self-defense.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 2, 2019
Milano responded to Cruz's explanation on Monday, saying she'd like to meet with him in person and livestream the conversation "so the American people can hear your bullsh*t."
She also pointed him to 1 Peter 4:8, which says: "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins."
I’d love to come in and meet with you on the gun issue and many other issues that include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, @tedcruz and also, 1 Peter 4:8.
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) September 2, 2019
I’ll be in DC next week. We can live-stream the meeting so the American people can hear your bullshit 1st hand. https://t.co/S3ljfjjOtG