DALLAS (AP) - One of the gun-rights lobby’s staunchest defenders in Texas is bucking the National Rifle Association on background checks after a West Texas shooting rampage killed seven people.

The NRA pushed back Friday in a rare moment of the nation’s most powerful gun-rights group slapping down a key Republican ally.

It came after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told The Dallas Morning News that Texas should crackdown on private gun sales between strangers. Federal officials say the gunman in last weekend’s attack obtained an assault-style rifle despite failing a federal background check in 2014.

The NRA called Patrick’s idea a “political gambit” and disparagingly compared it to those from Democrats.

Patrick has been an avid gun-rights supporter but told the newspaper: “someone in the Republican Party has to take the lead on this.”

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