Beto O’Rourke says he’s coming for our guns. He’s made it very clear that he’s coming for our guns. Explicit, even. He’s even selling T-shirts claiming he’s going to come for our guns. (I also plan on buying one off of eBay after his campaign formally implodes. I think it’ll make a hilarious range shirt for when I shoot my AR-15.)

Oh, I know, a fact-checking site claims he’s really not because he’s not coming for all of our guns, but we all know what that is. Male bovine excrement.

Now, another candidate is calling O’Rourke out on his rhetoric and O’Rourke doesn’t like it.

Buttigieg said Sunday he agrees with those who say O’Rourke’s comment plays into the hands of Republicans. The South Bend, Indiana, mayor argued now is a “golden moment” to pass gun legislation, telling CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” that the majority of Americans support so-called red flag laws, banning high-capacity magazines and prohibiting the sale of assault weapons.

“When even this President and even (Senate Majority Leader) Mitch McConnell are at least pretending to be open to reforms, we know that we have a moment on our hands,” Buttigieg said. “Let’s make the most of it and get these things done.”

O’Rourke fired back at Buttigieg on Twitter and wrote, “Leaving millions of weapons of war on the streets because Trump and McConnell are ‘at least pretending to be open to reforms’?”

“That calculation and fear is what got us here in the first place,” he continued. “Let’s have the courage to say what we believe and fight for it.”

O’Rourke is one of three Democrats, along with Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey, to support mandatory buybacks for certain guns. Other Democrats, including Buttigieg, would make them illegal but not require them to be bought back by the government.

Some on the anti-gun side have argued that the sound clip of O’Rourke saying that he’ll come for our guns will play at every Second Amendment rally for years.

They’re right.

However, let’s also be fair to Beto. He didn’t come up with something new. He didn’t come up with something no one else in the Democratic Party hadn’t thought about. No, he was simply the first anti-gunner stupid enough to come right out and say it.

Buttigieg, who is anything but a moderate, recognizes that this will galvanize the gun rights supporters and allow us to point out just how accurate our predictions have been over the years. We’ve been saying they want our guns, anti-gunners keep claiming they’re not–O’Rourke took that same position when he ran against Ted Cruz in 2018–and then we get this that proves otherwise.

Plus, if O’Rourke’s position on mandatory buybacks was such an isolated thing, why is he apeing what Rep. Eric Swalwell campaigned on? Why did Harris and Booker endorse the plan as well?

No, this is becoming a mainstream Democratic position, and Buttigieg is right to push back. If the Democrats are going to have a hope in hell of winning, they need to push back on this.

As it stands, President Trump is likely to propose some degree of gun control this week. That could have hurt him severely with gun owners…but then the Democrats had to go and give that same group a reason to rally behind Trump in spite of his proposals later this week.

Brilliant.

Of course, from this side of the aisle, I’m just ready to watch and laugh as they push themselves further and further away from contention.