When a deranged gunman entered a church in the small town of Southerland Springs, Texas and started to shoot people, including pregnant women and crying babies, a lot of people on social media were quick to place blame on people and entities beyond the shooter. TV personality Chelsea Handler was pretty sure it was the Republicans. Former “Star Trek” child actor Wil Wheaton cursed the NRA, a narrative that fell apart when the news broke that a former NRA instructor stopped the shooting and put the monster to flight with his personal weapon.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas has another group of people in mind who allowed the shooter to buy a firearm.

Cruz points the finger of blame at the Senate Democrats.

Senate Democrats? Please explain

Cruz explained on Fox News, that in 2013, in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, he and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R, Iowa introduced a piece of common sense gun safety legislation of the sort that the Democrats keep talking about. The bill would have mandated that federal agencies, including the United States Air Force, update the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database that is used to track convicted criminals during gun purchase background checks. However, the Democrats filibustered the bill to death.

The shooter got his firearms due to a clerical error

When the shooter who perpetrated the Texas church massacre purchased the weapons he used to kill 26 people and wound another 20, the clerk at the Academy store duly ran a background check, as required by law.

The check did not raise any red flags, so the future mass murderer was able to acquire his instruments of death without a fuss.

However, the shooter had been court-martialed while in the Air Force for domestic violence, choking his wife and cracking his baby’s skull. He served a 12-month sentence before being given a bad conduct discharge from the service.

Either circumstance should have prevented him from obtaining a firearm.

However, for whatever reason and the matter is still under investigation, the Air Force failed to enter this information onto the NCIC database. Had the Cruz-Grassley legislation passed, it is more likely that the shooter would have been prevented from buying a firearm and, indeed, would be subject to arrest and prosecution for attempting to do so.

So, in a way, Cruz is correct. The Senate Democrats, by filibustering the bill to death, put the gun in the hands of the Southerland Springs murderer. Of course, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California is so distraught that she is raising her oldy-but-goody legislation, a ban on so-called “assault weapons” that has no chance of passing.