Meanwhile, Cruz, while attending a vigil for the shooting victims, “stormed away” from a Sky News reporter who asked him, “Why does this only happen in your country? …. This speech went viral and to- date has been viewed over 200 million times online.”

Robinson, on his lieutenant governor’s website, notes that he “became a household name after he delivered an incredibly strong address to the Greensboro City Council defending the 2nd Amendment. “But the Crips and Bloods on the other side of town? They’re not gonna turn their guns in,” said the man who would go on to become the first African American elected lieutenant governor in North Carolina during an April, 2018 city council meeting that went viral on social media. Robinson, before he was elected as lieutenant governor, garnered national attention among conservatives and gun rights advocates for cutting his political teeth asserting the rights of law-abiding gun owners who would turn their guns in at the behest of the government. “I hate to say this but there are more people who are shot every weekend in Chicago than there are in schools in Texas,” Abbott said hours after the mass killings, as if reminders of the deadly gun violence in the Windy City offered comfort to the families of the little children and teachers murdered in Uvalde. The Texas politicians Abbott and Cruz, along with offering thoughts and prayers, have shown about as much sensitivity as a small farm animal for the shooting victims. Robinson, described on the event’s press release as an NRA board member, will be joined by a cast of political characters straight out of authoritarianism’s central casting office, including Trump, Senator Ted Cruz, NRA director Wayne LaPierre, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, are among the panjandrums described on the NRA website as “our nation’s top Second Amendment leaders in government, the media, and the entertainment industry.” The forum is billed on the NRA website as “one of the most politically significant and popular events in the country.”

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Nra speech thoughts and prayers