Mentsch1 – you are underestimating the willingness of US citizens to obey the law. Even people who love their AR-15s obey the law of the land. I don’t think that all these warnings about civil war are going to happen except in white nationalists’ dreams. People may post to their FB pages with declarations of mayhem to come, but most people want to live normal lives, and giving up your AR-15 in a gun buyback isn’t going to motivate people with families and jobs to go off the deep end. Texans are people too. The state is deep red, but it’s not an open-air lunatic asylum.
Remember that according to the polls most Americans support some form of gun control, especially banning assault weapons. As for handguns – license them with good background checks (including for private sales) and get the illegal ones off the streets. And check the stats – most people killed by guns are suicidal or accident victims. Street violence makes the front page, which is why you remember it. If Cruz had used the gun on himself instead of other people, he would never have gotten more than a line in the local paper.