It's Showtime: Ted Cruz Accepts Alyssa Milano's Vulgar Demand for Live Gun Debate
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and actress Alyssa Milano have agreed to meet next week to discuss gun violence — and the face-off promises to be compelling.
Milano made herself a prominent presence during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh last fall, pushing hard against the Trump nominee.
Having lost that fight, she has set her sights on the Second Amendment.
Milano and Cruz had a Twitter exchange starting over the weekend that resulted in an agreement to meet in Washington, D.C. next week.
It all began on Sunday, when Milano asked, “Can someone cite which passage of the Bible God states it is a god-given right to own a gun?”
Cruz answered, “An excellent Q, worth considering carefully w/o the snark of Twitter. It is of course not the right to a modern-day firearm that is God-give but rather the right to Life & the right to Liberty. Essential to that right to life is the right to DEFEND your life & your family.”
An excellent Q, worth considering carefully w/o the snark of Twitter. It is of course not the right to a modern-day firearm that is God-give but rather the right to Life & the right to Liberty. Essential to that right to life is the right to DEFEND your life & your family. 1/x https://t.co/8pjstMGrGB
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 1, 2019
The senator went on in a string of tweets to build his case, quoting from the Bible to defend the idea that self-defense is a God-given right.
Cruz then demonstrated how the Founding Fathers adopted this Christian belief in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the “laws of nature and nature’s God” as pre-eminent.
The Declaration pronounces that all people are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” and “that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.”
The Second Amendment is all about securing the God-given right to self-defense, not hunting or sport, Cruz contends.
4/x And, for that reason, the Second Amendment provides “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, SHALL NOT be infringed.” It wasn’t to protect people’s ability to hunt, or to shoot target practice, but to defend their lives, their homes & their families.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 2, 2019
Milano responded to Cruz’s thread of tweets by asking for a sit-down, but ended her request by insulting the senator.
“I’d love to come in and meet with you on the gun issue and many other issues that include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, @tedcruz and also, 1 Peter 4:8,” she tweeted.
The Bible passage reads: “And above all things have fervent love for one another, for ‘love will cover a multitude of sins.’”
If her tweet had ended there, it would have been a very nice and respectful request.
But the leftist activist did not leave it there.
Milano added, “I’ll be in DC next week. We can live-stream the meeting so the American people can hear your bulls— 1st hand.”
I’d love to come in and meet with you on the gun issue and many other issues that include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, @tedcruz and also, 1 Peter 4:8.
I’ll be in DC next week. We can live-stream the meeting so the American people can hear your bullshit 1st hand. https://t.co/S3ljfjjOtG
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) September 2, 2019
Cruz took the high road, ignoring Milano’s vulgar comment and simply replying on Monday, “If we can have a civil & positive conversation—in the spirit of 1 Peter 4:8 as you suggest—despite our political differences, that might help resolve the discord in our Nation.”
Great. I just called your office. They gave me your schedulers email address. I emailed to set up a meeting. Looking forward to it. https://t.co/Sz8avRVGrq
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) September 3, 2019
On Tuesday, Milano responded, “Great. I just called your office. They gave me your schedulers email address. I emailed to set up a meeting. Looking forward to it.”
The former “Who’s the Boss?” star has already indicated that one of her arguments may be that when the Second Amendment was adopted, the primary personal firearm was a musket, not an AR-15.
TOP: what arms looked like when the second amendment was written.
Magazine capacity—1 round. 3 rounds per minute.
BOTTOM: what arms looks like now.
Magazine capacity—round 30. 45 rounds per minute. pic.twitter.com/KD4paCIkGn
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) September 2, 2019
Cruz could respond to such an argument by pointing out that law-abiding Americans should not be forced to defend themselves with a lesser weapon than violent criminals.
Milano will also likely ding Cruz for accepting donations from pro-Second Amendment groups, which she has already done online.
Cruz has introduced a bill with Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley to “bolster” the national background check system for gun purchases and tweeted, “We need to do MUCH more to stop violent criminals & those w/ dangerous mental illness BEFORE they murder & I’m leading the fight in the Senate to do so.”
But he concluded that “Playing politics w/ these deranged crimes—and trying to use them as an excuse to violate the [constitutional] rights of law-abiding citizens—won’t make anybody safer. Forcible gun confiscation (as some 2020 Dems urge) won’t prevent mass-murders. But it would weaken our self-defense.”
Sparks are almost certain to fly when these two meet, but hopefully Milano will come prepared to debate — and not just be there to create a spectacle.
Cruz is an accomplished, Harvard-trained lawyer who has the full weight of the Constitution and the God-given right to self-defense in his corner.
It will be interesting to see what Milano brings to the contest.
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