Senator Ted Cruz (R – TX) made a surprise visit to Freedom Works activists in Austin last Friday and told attendees how angry Democrats and Republicans were over his stand on the gun control legislation that eventually failed in the Senate.

“When the votes came on the floor of the Senate, every single proposal in President Obama’s gun control agenda that would have undermined the Second Amendment–every single one of them was voted down on the floor of the Senate. I gotta tell you the look of shock from the senior Democrats–they were convinced they had won,” he said.

He continued saying, “Now I gotta tell ya’ I don’t know if there’s an issue that has generated more heat internally in the Republican conference. We’ve had maybe five or six lunches with a bunch of Republican senator standing up and looking at Rand and Mike and me and yelling at us at the top of their lungs. I mean, really upset.”

“They said, ‘Look, why did you do this? As a result of what you did, when I go home, my constituents are yelling at me and then I have to stand on principle.’ I’m really not making that up. I don’t even bother to argue with them. I just sort of let them go and say, ‘Look, you know, vote your conscience.'”

Senator John McCain (R – AZ) was particularly vocal during the gun control debate on Capitol Hill. He accused Cruz, Sen. Rand Paul (R – KY) and Sen. Mike Lee (R – UT) for threatening to filibuster gun control legislation, because the Arizona GOP’er believed they were “afraid.”

Cruz explained to the conservative activists, “Look there are a lot of people who don’t like to be held accountable, but here was their argument. ‘Listen, before you did this, the politics of tis was great. The Dems were the bad guys the Republicans were the good guys. Now we all look like a bunch of squishes.’ Well there is an alternative. You could just not be a bunch of squishes.”