Ted Cruz said school shootings can be prevented if they have armed guards, like in banks. That aged poorly after the deadly Louisville bank shooting.

• Ted Cruz said stationing armed police in schools, as they do in banks, would help stop school shootings.
• On March 30, Cruz suggested that children should be protected with guns, like bank deposits are.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz proposed a solution to school shootings: Stationing as many armed police officers in schools as there are in banks.

Less than two weeks later, a shooter in Kentucky opened fire at a bank, killing at least five people and injuring eight others.

"You know, when you go to the bank, and you deposit money in the bank, there are armed police officers at the bank. Why? Because we want to protect the money we save. Why on earth do we protect a stupid deposit more than our children?" Cruz said on March 30.

"We have an opportunity right now to double the police officers on campus and keep kids safe," Cruz added.

He reiterated the sentiment in a tweet on March 31.

Cruz's proposed bill on school safety, which he has been pushing for months, was blocked in the Senate on March 30.

The senator's insistence that banks are a paragon of safety and security came just days before a 25-year-old bank employee opened fire on his colleagues.

Cruz has, in the past, made widely panned suggestions on how to stop gun violence.

After the Uvalde school shooting, where a shooter killed 21 people, Cruz floated a bizarre idea for preventing school shootings: Having a "single point of entry" in schools.

"Fire exits should only open out. At that single point of entry, we should have multiple armed police officers or, if need be, military veterans trained to provide security and keep our children safe," Cruz said in an interview with Fox News, published on May 27.

Cruz was also booed at a September festival in Austin after his comments on gun legislation. At the festival, Cruz suggested that violence "is actually the only thing" that helps stop violence — a common, right-wing talking point often trotted out by the National Rifle Association (NRA).

Cruz is also an NRA-friendly GOP politician. Days after the Uvalde shooting, Cruz refused to cancel his appearance at the organization's leadership conference in Houston. Justifying his decision, he told CBS News that the NRA "stands up for your rights, stands up for my rights, and stands up for the rights of every American."

Texas has the highest firearm mortality rate of any state — 4,164 firearm-related deaths in 2020 — per statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Representatives for Cruz did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment sent outside regular business hours.