Meanwhile, the contest for Dumbest Man in Congress is still going strong…

GOP Senator Peddles Debunked Misinformation On Gun Violence

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) cherry picked data and misled the public about gun research in a Senate Judiciary hearing on Tuesday, painting a picture of America’s gun problem entirely at odds with reality. Cruz made two arguments when questioning US Attorney Tim Heaphy — first, that gun regulations made gun crime higher in American cities; second, that there was no empirical evidence that gun law reform would reduce crime:

CRUZ: San Antonio has 7 murders per 100,000 people. Austin has four murders per 100,00 people. El Paso has two murders per 100,000 people. That means Detroit, the murder rate is 24 times higher than it is in El Paso…None of those cities I discussed, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, are isolated islands. Indeed, in the entire state [of Texas] you can purchase firearms and what we see with the murder rates is that the murder rates are consistently lower. My question to you, is not your subjective beliefs, but are you aware of any empirical data — every one of us wants to reduce murder rates — my question to you is there any basis to say that stripping the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens would result in decreasing murder rates rather than increasing them which, unfortunately, is the pattern I think we’ve seen.

State level data contradicts Cruz’s assertion. The two states with the highest per capita murder rates in 2011, Louisiana and Mississippi, have F ratings from the pro-reform Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence (the third highest, South Carolina, gets a D-). Louisiana and Mississippi don’t, among other things, require background checks on private sales, require firearm dealers to acquire licenses in order to sell guns legally, or limit the number of guns any one person can purchase at once.