By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Did Texas gun owners pull the plug on veteran GOP Sen. John Cornyn’s political career because of his collaboration with former-President Joe Biden’s administration on the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act?
It appears that way in a report posted by The Truth About Guns, in which the allegation is made that Lone Star State gun owners “turned on Cornyn immediately” after he negotiated on the Biden-backed legislation, described by proponents as the largest and most significant gun control effort in 30 years.
The group Texas Gun Rights had sent an open letter to President Donald Trump in May 2025, imploring him to not endorse Cornyn for re-election, despite his long tenure in the U.S. Senate.
In their letter, the gun rights group stated, “Senator Cornyn has repeatedly betrayed the trust of gun owners in Texas and across the country. His authorship of the “Fix NICS” gun control deal in 2017 flooded the federal “prohibited persons” list with millions of Americans — including veterans — without due process.
“Worse,” the letter continued, “he was the lead Republican architect of the Biden-Cornyn Gun Control Bill — the so-called Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) — which Joe Biden himself celebrated as the most significant gun control legislation in 30 years.
“The Cornyn-led BSCA has already been used to justify backdoor federal gun regulations, Red Flag-style gun confiscation grants, and an expanded National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) that digs into sealed juvenile and mental health records,” Texas Gun Rights stated.
Cornyn suffered a crushing primary runoff defeat to Attorney General Ken Paxton, who had received a Trump endorsement, illustrating the president’s power among conservatives. As a result, Paxton will now face off against Democrat State Rep. James Talarico in November, in what NBC News says is race “that could become key to the fight for the Senate majority.”
There is much at stake. If Democrats recapture the Senate, it will spell the end to Trump’s efforts to seat conservative judges in the various federal courts. Any nominations to fill cabinet positions with conservatives loyal to the president will also hit major speed bumps.
Cornyn’s defeat sends a signal to other Republicans running for re-election this fall to Senate and House seats: Don’t compromise on the Second Amendment. In their letter to Trump, the Texas gun group stated, “The grassroots is speaking. They are fed up with career politicians who fold on our rights and say one thing in Texas but vote the opposite in Washington.”
