Lightfoot, a Democrat, claimed in a tweet that 60% of illegal firearms recovered in Chicago come from outside of Illinois, “mostly from states dominated by coward Republicans like you who refuse to enact commonsense gun legislation.”
“Keep our name out of your mouth,” Lightfoot wrote in a message directed at the Republican senator.
The mayor’s tweet includes a graph from the 2017 Gun Trace Report, which was put out by the city of Chicago and the Chicago Police Department, showing the majority of illegally used or possessed firearms recovered in Chicago are from states with less firearm regulations, like Indiana and Mississippi. According to the report, 60% of firearms come from out of state, with Indiana as the primary source for approximately one out of every five crime guns.
Lightfoot was responding to a tweet by Cruz, who has been a longtime opponent of stricter gun laws, in which he pointed to Chicago and claimed “Gun control doesn’t work.”
“Disarming law-abiding citizens isn’t the answer,” he wrote. “Stopping violent criminals—prosecuting & getting them off the street—BEFORE they commit more violent crimes is the most effective way to reduce murder rates.” His tweet was responding to a report about recent gun violence in Chicago.
CNN has reached out to Cruz’s office for comment.
Cruz, whose state witnessed two massacres over the past month, sidestepped questions Tuesday on whether he’d support a bill to mandate universal background checks on gun sales. Instead, Cruz told reporters the Senate should pass an alternative GOP bill that he cosponsored with Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, that would increase resources for prosecuting gun crimes, such as trafficking and straw purchases. The bill would seek to bolster accurate reporting from agencies and institutions to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
“I’ve introduced legislation strengthening the federal background check system — Grassley-Cruz — and we need to pass Grassley-Cruz,” Cruz he when asked by CNN if he would support universal background checks.
