Cruz and Chicago mayor trade blows on Twitter over gun violence

Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot shared a heated exchange on Twitter over gun violence, in which Lightfoot accused Cruz of being a "coward Republican" and Cruz criticized the city's criminal policies as ineffective.

The spat began when Cruz shared a story from Breitbart about the Labor Day weekend gun violence in Chicago, tweeting that disarming "law-abiding citizens" was not the answer, but rather the answer is incarcerating violent criminals before they have the opportunity to commit more crimes.

Lightfoot responded that Cruz should "keep our name out of your mouth" and blamed neighboring states with less strict gun policies as the source of gun violence in the city. According to Time , Chicago was responsible for nearly half of the increase in homicides in the United States in 2016.

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