School bus caravan protests Sen. Ted Cruz’s home, office to call for tougher gun laws

Family members of school shooting victims targeted the Houston home and congressional office of Sen. Ted Cruz on Thursday, the first stop in their nationwide school bus caravan demonstrating for tougher gun regulations.

Fifty-two buses and 20 parents, in what organizers called “The NRA Children’s Museum,” first drove to the Republican senator’s home in River Oaks, then drove around his offices at Louisiana and Pierce streets.

Manuel Oliver, whose 17-year-old son Joaquin Oliver was shot and killed in 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., said the campaign is targeting lawmakers who accept campaign contributions from the NRA, hoping to influence voters before the mid-term elections in November.

“My wife Patricia and myself, we have been trying to find non-traditional ways of fighting against gun violence,” Oliver said, noting the 4,300 seats in the buses represent the number of children killed by gun violence since 2020.

The busses include personal items from the some of the slain children.

“It’s very graphic, but yet, between other things, we carry items inside that belong to our kids. When I say our kids, I’m talking about parents from all around the country.”

Among the items is a letter written by Oliver’s son when he was 12 for a school project on gun control. The letter called for universal background checks.

“Most of you have a problem with the idea of universal back round (sic) check. Why are you mad that there’s a back round check it’s for your own good maybe you are fond of having crazy people with death machines,” Joaquin wrote in 2013. “You shouldn’t have anything against back round checks if you’re innocent.”

Oliver said this is the first time his family has shared his son’s letter. He delivered a copy of it to Cruz’s home where a security guard took it and said he would give it to the senator.

Upon visiting Cruz’s office, demonstrators were met again with one of Cruz’s representatives who said the senator was in Washington D.C.

“It’s hard to find them (legislators) for obvious reasons,” Oliver said. “They are not going to show their faces but in the long term they will need to start giving answers because this is huge. These are items from American kids that died because of the inaction of our politicians.”

On Monday, Oliver heckled President Joe Biden during a speech promoting a bipartisan gun control law. Biden told him to “sit down” during the incident.

The parents participating in the caravan initially gathered Wednesday at a parking lot outside of the city to create a bus formation in the shape of an assault rifle before Thursday’s planned action.

Oliver hopes to bring awareness of the legislators who accept NRA campaign contributions while sharing with the public the personal messages and items on and inside the buses. He also hopes other parents will join the movement as the group visits other locations.

“We can find ways to reach people with an easy language to understand, like a museum,” Oliver said. “When you get into a museum, you learn things.”

joel.umanzor@chron.com