"Keep our name on your mouth" on gun control

"Gun control does not work", Cruz tweeted. "Look at Chicago, disarming law-abiding citizens is not the answer."

"Stopping violent criminals – prosecuting them and taking them off the street – BEFORE they commit more violent crime is the most effective way to reduce murder rates," wrote the Republican lawmaker. "Protect our citizens."

Lightfoot responded in a tweet: "60% of the illegal firearms recovered in Chicago come from outside of Illinois, mostly states dominated by cowardly Republicans like you who refuse to enact common sense firearms legislation. Protect yourself from our name. "

Lightfoot included in his tweet a graph from the 2017 Firearms Hunt Report, which analyzed data from 2013 to 2016 to identify the origin of weapons used in crimes. The report was published by the city of Chicago and its police department in conjunction with the crime lab of the University of Chicago.

"With consistent data trends dating back almost a decade, the majority of firearms used or illegally owned and recovered in Chicago date back to less-gun-subject states, such as the United States. Indiana and Mississippi, "says the report.

In a follow-up tweetLightfoot wrote that when Cruz and the GOP "reject common sense policies, they lack respect for the victims and their families, who deserve to live without pain or fear."

Their exchange on Twitter comes two days after a 36-year-old gunman fired indiscriminately on motorists and police officers armed with an AR-15 rifle while he was driving in the twin cities of Midland and Odessa, in western Texas. Seth Ator opened fire after a routine traffic stop on Saturday, killing seven people and injuring more than 20 others. He was killed by the police in front of a cinema.

Conservative critics often invoke Chicago's gun violence to oppose gun control proposals.

Last month, Lightfoot criticized President Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, for an inaccurate tweet about violence in Chicago following mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton.

"With 7 dead and 52 wounded near a playground in Windy City – and little national outrage or media coverage – we must not numb ourselves in the face of the violence that the communities of the world are facing. downtown every day ", Ivanka Trump tweeted.

Lightfoot responded that Trump had confused the facts and falsely implicated that all injuries were caused in a single incident.

"It was not a playground. It was a park. It was not seven dead. It did not hurt 52 people in an incident, that's what it suggests. It's misleading " Said Lightfoot at a press conference.