Texas Senator Ted Cruz asserted his intentions to fight off efforts to implement gun restrictions in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting last week.

Speaking at the NRA conference in Houston this past weekend, Cruz condemned the evil of the Uvalde school shooter and stated the response to tragedy should not be to give up rights.

“It’s far easier to slander one’s political adversaries and to demand that responsible citizens forfeit their constitutional rights than it is to examine the cultural sickness giving birth to unspeakable acts of evil,” Cruz said. “It’s far less comfortable to ask why despair and isolation and violent hatred is so prevalent in America.”

Cruz shifted from condemning the evil act to vilifying “the elites who dominate our culture” for claiming firearms are the “root of the problem.”

The senator pointed to several culprits for mass shootings, such as bullying, exposure and desensitization to violence, drug abuse, and divergence from religion.

“Tragedies like the events of this week are a mirror forcing us to ask hard questions, demanding that we see where our culture is failing; looking at broken families, absent fathers, declining church attendance, social media bullying, violent online content, desensitizing the act of murder in video games, chronic isolation, prescription drug and opioid abuse, and their collective effects on the psyche of young Americans is both complicated and multifaceted,” Cruz added.

“It’s a lot easier to moralize about guns and to shriek about those you disagree with politically, but it’s never been about guns,” the senator further declared.

Cruz called for schools to have a single entryway guarded by armed police or trained military veterans, bulletproof doors, and locking classroom doors.

“Taking guns away from these responsible Americans will not make them safer, nor will it make our nation more secure,” Cruz said. “In an age where elites embrace defunding the police, when homelessness runs rampant, when gangs dominate entire communities, and when radical district attorneys refuse to prosecute violent crime in cities across America, rarely has the Second Amendment been more necessary to secure the rights of our fellow citizens.”