Privately made firearms are rarely used in murders. According to the Department of Justice, from January 2016 to December 2021, less than 2 percent of privately made firearms recovered by law enforcement were found in connection with “homicides or attempted homicides.” Biden’s blatant abuse of power in his new “ghost gun” rule is not about saving lives, it’s about utter control and keeping guns out of the hands of good people.

Saying “Cruz’s Second-Amendment absolutism makes about as much sense as a man stepping into a subway car and opening fire with a Glock” is dead wrong. The number of New York City’s gun violence victims increased 14.5 percent from 2021. This past November, the Supreme Court heard the case NYSRPA v. Bruen , which questioned whether the state of New York’s denial of petitioners’ applications for concealed-carry licenses for self-defense violated the Second Amendment. This essentially means New Yorkers haven’t been able to exercise their constitutional right to carry a firearm. If they were able to conceal carry, I wonder if someone could have stopped the gunman on the subway?

All of this is smoke and mirrors to help promote gun control. A ghost gun ban isn’t a real solution to Biden’s crime problem — it’s a distraction from his administration’s failures. Cruz is right to side on Second Amendment absolutism, and so are we at Gun Owners of America, because we have the right to keep and bear arms.

This letter to the Editor was originally posted on the Houston Chronicle