Ted Cruz drops dog whistle in panicked defense of guns on TMZ

Survivors of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting are leading a powerful resistance to gun violence, and Republicans like Ted Cruz are resorting to absurd talking points instead of responding to the students’ demands for immediate action.

The Texas senator showed his sneering true color last week when he laughed off calls for gun control in the immediate aftermath of the attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 people dead.

Then, in an interview on TMZ, he went even further in his praise of the Second Amendment.

“The Second Amendment is about, it’s about a single mom living in a tough neighborhood with a crack house down the street being able to defend herself and defend her kids,” Cruz said.

He then pointed to the mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, last year, as further evidence of the value of unfettered access to guns.

“It was the Second Amendment that saved a lot of lives that day,” he said of a shooting in which 26 people were shot dead and another 20 injured.

The massacre in Sutherland Springs has become popular with Republicans as a way to promote the “good guy with a gun” myth, but the shooter in that case was wounded as he left the church and shot himself after fleeing in his car.

Cruz is the latest example of Republicans going to absurd lengths to avoid focusing on gun violence in the aftermath of last week’s tragedy. Over the weekend, one Republican suggested turning our schools into “biker bars,” while another compared guns to shovels and bricks, and Trump himself spent some “quality time” with a radio host who suggested armed drones in schools.

The debate over gun violence has changed after the Parkland mass shooting, as the survivors have been speaking out with power and brilliance, and Americans have been listening. If their desperate talking points are any indication, Republicans are listening too. They’re just not getting the message.