America's lucrative gun business Cartoon: Carlos Latuff

In the aftermath of the May 24 shooting at a Texas elementary school which killed 19 children, Michael McCaul, a Republican congressman representing Texas' 10th Congressional District, posted on Twitter that he'd like to extend his "prayers and deepest sympathies" to the children, staff, and families affected by the shooting. 

But this isn't the first time McCaul has posted similar contents in the past few years. From the 2015 college shooting in Roseburg, Oregon, to the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida and the high school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, McCaul has constantly posted on social media that "his heart goes out to" the victims and their families more than a few times. 

But McCaul, as a lawmaker, has not only failed to find a way to introduce laws to restrict guns, the sources of these tragedies, but has also been preventing other lawmakers from doing so. 

Why? Because he has been sponsored by the National Rifle Association's Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) for the past 10 years or so. Most recently, in 2020, the NRA-PVF publicly called on its supporters to vote for McCaul in an open letter because he is a "staunch defender" of unlimited gun rights, and he opposes democrats' restrictions on firearms.

What's even more absurd is that just a day before the shooting at Robb Elementary School, McCaul made a fool of himself. He went to Davos, Switzerland on Monday, far from his Texas constituency, to attend the World Economic Forum, during which Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky gave a speech. 

McCaul told CNN's John Berman in an interview that he took a photograph showing that the "Chinese delegation" was sitting behind him and that the delegation refused to clap like others did after Zelensky delivered a "powerful" speech in rallying the international community. However, the Chinese delegation dismissed the accusation, and it turned out that the four in the photo, sitting behind McCaul, were in fact Vietnamese.

CNN has responded to Chinese media on this matter and admitted its own reporting errors. Berman and his anchor producer Nora Neus have since taken down the fake news video they posted on their social media accounts. But neither CNN, Berman or Neus have apologized or clarified the fake news on their official social accounts. McCaul has not responded to the mistake, either.

However, when accusing the Vietnamese who didn't applaud Zelensky, McCaul said something that caught my attention and made me feel particularly ironic. He said: "They have blood on their hands and we cannot let them get away with this."

How does the politician who has constantly blocked gun control legislation, leaving school shootings repeated in the US, and undermining the image of Americans by fabricating lies at the World Economic Forum, thousands of miles away from Texas voters the day before the school shooting, have the nerve to say that others have "blood on their hands?" 

No, McCaul is the one with blood on his hands - the blood of the 19 killed children at Robb Elementary School. Americans should not let him "get away with this." 

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn