Sen. Ted Cruz went on Donald Trump’s favorite show Thursday to roll out the favorite argument of Republicans who want to see more children die in the name of a constitutional amendment that applied to muskets and well-organized militias:

“The reaction of Democrats to any tragedy is to try to politicize it,” Cruz said on “Fox & Friends.” “So they immediately start calling that we’ve got to take away the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. That’s not the right answer.”

Said the man whose party uses any crime committed by a Muslim or immigrant to double down on political attacks on Muslims and immigrants. Said a man who is on the list of top recipients of NRA money, a group that has done more than any other to politicize the issue of guns in America.

“When I was at the hospital with the victims, with the victims’ families, over and over again what they said to me in Texas – they said gun control is not the answer here,” Cruz said.

Good for them. And they matter more than Sandy Hook families and other families that have lost children and loved ones to mass shootings why, exactly? Also, let’s not forget that the killer in the Texas mass shooting should have been barred from buying guns because of his domestic violence record but the Air Force failed to enter him in a database. 

Not every killing is political. But the overriding tragedy of American gun violence, a tragedy that the NRA has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into creating and protecting? There are few issues more political.