Cruz hits back at Dem senator over school safety spat: 'Blind partisanship above the safety of our students'

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Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich says liberal attorneys general from California and New York have claimed the move to flag firearm purchases is an attempt to prevent crime. 

Sen. Chris Murphy said Sen. Ted Cruz "is not in the Senate to compromise," but the Texas senator believes that Murphy is the one holding Congress back from making real changes to protect citizens from gun violence.

"The congressional record is abundantly clear: Sen. Cruz engaged in a serious effort to pass his Securing Our Schools Act, which would have doubled the number of school resource officers, invested billions in additional school safety and school-based mental health professionals and increased physical security through grants," Dave Vasquez, press secretary for Cruz, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital. "He also fought to pass the Protect Our Children’s Schools Act – which would have allowed local schools to use unspent federal COVID-19 funds to address their specific security needs."

While promoting stricter laws on firearms during an appearance on "Salon Talks" Tuesday, Murphy, D-Conn., took aim at Republicans seeking to protect Second Amendment rights. 

"It is beyond me why Republicans who claim to care about the health of our kids don’t seem to give a crap about our children who are being exposed to these epidemic, cataclysmic rates of gun violence," Murphy said in the interview. 

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Sen. Chris Murphy said Sen. Cruz is "not in the Senate to compromise. He's in the Senate to get clicks." (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

When Murphy was asked if he could reach any GOP lawmakers, specifically Cruz, on the issue, he did not refrain from slamming the Republican senator. 

"I don't know that I have battles with Ted Cruz. I just tend to ignore him. I mean, he comes to the floor and makes these ridiculous requests. I object to them and then leave the floor. And he yells at me for a while once I'm back in my office, but I'm not sure that they're actual battles. Ted Cruz is looking for confrontations and opportunities to yell at people, and I would rather not give him those opportunities," he said, adding that Cruz is "not in the Senate to compromise. He's in the Senate to get clicks."

After the tragic elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Cruz introduced the Securing Our Schools Act, a bill by that sought to invest $15 billion in school safety personnel to improve school security and expand student access to mental health resources. Murphy voted against the legislation, and it did not pass in the Senate.

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"Both of these common sense measures would have passed if not for Sen. Murphy – who put blind partisanship above the safety of our students," Vasquez added. "Sen. Cruz’s Securing Our Schools Act included the expansion of the Nonprofit Security Grant program, which Congress eventually approved. Both bills were real efforts to keep our students safe, but Sen. Murphy objected to them and stood in the way of actually making our schools more secure to protect students."

Sen. Ted Cruz introduced the Securing Our Schools Act alongside Sen. John Barrasso. (Michael Wyke)

On Sept. 14, 2022, Cruz called out Murphy on the Senate floor for objecting to the bill but not stating any reasons for his opposition.

"What we just saw reveals that the Democrats have one objective when a mass murder happens, and that is to take away the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. That is always, always, always their solution," Cruz said in a Septmeber 2022 press release after the bill was blocked by Murphy and other Senate Democrats.

President Biden called on Congress Tuesday to ban assault weapons. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

President Joe Biden announced Tuesday he would be signing an executive order to require more background checks on gun purchases, the latest step in his continued push for the outright ban of "assault weapons" nationwide.

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"I signed into law the most significant gun safety reform in nearly three decades. But Congress must do more. Let’s pass universal background checks, eliminate immunity for gun manufacturers, and ban assault weapons," Biden tweeted Tuesday.