Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has come under some scrutiny in liberal media for suggesting only violence stops violence — although he was reiterating his gun rights position that only a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with one.
"Lots of folks on the left say, 'Look, let's just get rid of all the guns,'" Cruz told the Texas Tribune Festival on Saturday night, Business Insider reported.
"What that would mean is 500,000 to a million more people are victims of crime, are victims of rape, of murder, of assault."
A heckler in the crowd asked Cruz about the permitting of AR-15 ownership, but the senator noted hero Stephen Willeford used an AR-15 to stop the 2017 First Baptist Church shooter in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
"The weapon that Stephen used to stop that was an AR-15," Cruz told the crowd.
Another gun-control activist shouted "violence doesn't solve violence," but Cruz ostensibly called that fake news.
"It actually is the only thing that does," Cruz responded, according to BI.
Cruz noted the rate of rising violent crime under President Joe Biden and in Democrat-run cities with some of the most strict gun control measures.
"Violence doesn't solve violence? That is actually why the left wants to abolish police and why you see murder rates skyrocketing," Cruz told the crowd.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.