Cruz says Obama going after guns with ‘stand your ground’ remark
(CNN) – President Barack Obama’s suggestion that state “Stand your Ground” laws should be examined after the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin could amount to an assault on the right of Americans to own guns, Sen. Ted Cruz said in Iowa Friday.
Speaking after addressing a Republican group, Cruz told reporters he hadn’t yet watched Obama’s remarks. But when asked to respond to Obama’s call for a review of laws in individual states, Cruz responded by saying the president was trampling on constitutionally guaranteed rights.
“It is not surprising that the president uses, it seems, every opportunity that he can to go after our Second Amendment right to bear arms,” the Texas Republican said. “This president and this administration has a consistent disregard for the Bill of Rights.”
For example, Cruz said the Obama administration was violating free speech guarantees by “restricting the rights of our servicemen and women to share their faith and not be gagged,” and that the use of drones raised other constitutional questions.
Obama on Friday made his first public comments about the acquittal of George Zimmerman last week in Martin’s shooting death in 2012.
In his speech, Obama called for reconsideration of “Stand your Ground” self-defense laws in Florida and other states.
“I think it would be useful for us to examine some state and local laws to see if they are designed in such a way that they may encourage the kinds of altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case, rather than diffuse potential altercations,” Obama said.
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My recollection has it that the family of Trayvon Martin was grateful for the President's words. If you think about it, all they got out of this deal is a dead child preceding them to their graves. All the villainy that was placed on that minor who was killed by an idiot for having done nothing wrong. He hadn't committed a crime, but the MINOR was made out to be a monster who overcame that dummy with a gun. At least let the parents got something of comfort . They are the ones who are to judge whether or not the president was being opportunistic...or was it Cruz being opportunistic? He is quite dumb...as I recall.
revising stand your ground laws is not an attempt to take away your guns is simply to make sure those laws wont let any fool with a gun kill someone just because he feels afraid of him or her or just because black or Asian or Latin people give the jives
The Prez and his croney criminal side kick AG fan the flames of racism at every point
I'm all for dividing up America. Give us Blacks the Southern States of MS, AL, GA, FL, SC & LA. Give the Hispanics TX ,NM, AZ and Southern part of CA and U whites can have the rest. Blacks have never been given a fair shake in the courts and are the most hated race anywhere in the world. Maybe if America was divided among racial lines it would prevent a civil war in the future. India is a good example. Blacks & whites are like Hindus and Muslims. We will never be accepted as full citizens by white people, if we are a victim of violence by a white person they trial them with a jury who is sympathic towards whites and if we injure or kill a white we still would be tried by an all white jury who will not have sympathy for blacks. This is why the jails are full of blacks many are guilty but many are innocent because they never received a fair trial.
Seriously, Cruz? Really? You real?
Cruz told reporters he hadn’t yet watched Obama’s remarks.
^ GOP remains a clown party.
Keep clowning.
And keep losing the elections in November too.
Why is some complaining about Cruz? Obama hasn't read Obamacare, yet he always spouting off things about it that aren't true, i.e. you get to keep your doctor, your premiums will lower in cost. He also didn't mentioned that companies will have to convert full time jobs into part time to survive. Obama, evil is as evil does.
Just look at Cruz – another joyless, uptight, big business boot-licking Republican. Just what this country needs. Gag.
Ooooh, "going after" guns. Heaven forbid there's any kind of rational gun laws at all, right?
Can we send Ted to Mexico with Texas included? What a waste of a man and so full of hate and pandering. I wonder if he even believes what he says or he is just a paid hack! by the way Ted. Allowing people to kill other people for no good reason is not taking your stinking guns away!!
Cruz is one insane Texan. If he runs for Prez, we will be guaranteed another 8 years of Democrats in the White House.
You clowns shooting down Cruz for making this statement, are the problem. Go back under your rock and vote for the status quo. Tools.
"Stand-your-ground" laws only gives an excuse for someone to provoke you into attacking so they can have their excuse for shooting you dead. Revoke this "law" and send that fool to prison for manslaughter.
DAMN, Texas, what were you thinking when you elected this idiot? Is ideology so importnat that you must choose it EVERY SINGLE TIME over competence?
Apparently stand your ground means wherever I walk, whatever business I want to stick my nose in. whatever reasonings I want to ignore, whatever instructions from a 911 operator I want to ignore. Any state with SYG is going to have more dead and dying. Really what the NRA wants is for everyone to strap on a gun and slap leather to solve problems.
Cruz and Gohmert are a disgrace to Texas and to Congress. They certainly epitomize the ignorance of the Tea Party. Hopefully the voting public will wake up in 2014 and rid the Congress of such idiots before they destroy our country.
If gun control laws couldn't gain traction after 20 plus children were slaughtered at school, a representative gets shot in her head at a grocery store parking lot, and a Colorado theater filled with victims are shot in the dark, why would the "stand your ground law" be a means to federal gun control laws. The last paragraph in this article is easy to understand, and quite reasonable, words a president should offer from a case that held the nations attention.
Cruz isn't the first one to say something not knowing all the facts, see Obama's statement below on the Cambridge Police incident with Obama's friend.
"I don’t know – not having been there and not seeing all the facts – what role race played in that, but I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home," Obama said in response to a question from the Chicago Sun-Times's Lynn Sweet.
And the GOP wonders why it cannot win national elections with idiots like this in Congress.
Cruz is absolutely correct. Zimmerman's defense refused to use the SYG law and used simple self defense law instead which is the same for all states. Evidence proved that Trayvon attacked GZ when GZ was walking back to his car, Trayvon is the only one who broke the law. As a voting Democrat I can honestly say Obama and Holder have gone off the deep end.
Cruz is a moron. Obama's words were spoken from the heart, and I felt they were genuine.
Why is the President of the USA stepping into this unless he is a racist? He is suppose to be representing Brown, Red, Yellow, Black and White citizens of the USA.
Cruz must have gotten an emergency call from the NRA....lash out at Obama if you want any more big "contributions" from the gun manufacturers. Of course, they should be contributing to Obama himself. Despite the rhetoric (and likely the most mass murders contributed with guns during any presidency...certainly the most murdered kindergarteners), Obama had done less to get the gun carnage under control those any U.S. president in the last 30 years, including W Bush, who was owned by the war machine industry!
Per Politico, Cruz had not even heard the Presidents comments BEFORE he made these outrageous comments. It's truly a shame, just how pathetic republicans have become.
Cruz is just using the party line, if Obama says it, he is against it. It did not matter whether he even heard what was said.
Sure does not sound like Presidential material