AP Photo/Kathy Willens

When Beto O’Rourke was running for Senate in Texas, one of the big things working against him was his stance on guns. While Ted Cruz was a vehement supporter of the Second Amendment, O’Rourke wasn’t.

That may well have been what crashed the charismatic former congressman’s campaign.

Now, he’s convinced that his history on guns will bridge the divide in this country over the Second Amendment.

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke said Sunday that his personal use and ownership of firearms taught him the responsibility of having guns and can help bridge politically fraught discussions about gun control in the U.S.

The former Texas congressman told The Associated Press in an interview Sunday in Las Vegas that he inherited guns belonging to his great uncle, who had taught him how to shoot and handle a firearm responsibly. He says he and his wife, Amy, who grew up on a New Mexico ranch and used guns, made sure their children also knew how to safely handle guns.

“Not only are they proficient, they also understand the responsibility that comes with using or owning a firearm,” he said.

O’Rourke, speaking at a coffee shop 5 miles (8 kilometers) away from the site of a 2017 mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip, said he’d like to use his personal experience and the traditions of gun ownership in his home state of Texas to “lead the country on sensible gun safety policy” that reduces violence.

“It is not a politically easy thing to talk about, but I think if we talk about it from experience, out of pride and responsible gun ownership and ensuring that weapons of war are kept on the battlefield and they’re not used in our schools and concerts and communities, we’ll save a lot more lives and will do nothing to infringe upon any American’s Second Amendment rights,” he said.

He has called for universal background checks, a federal assault weapons ban, the closing of loopholes that allow someone to purchase a gun before their background check is completed and a ban on bump stocks, the device used by the Las Vegas shooter to mimic a fully automatic weapon.

So, he’s going to bridge the divide by backing every single anti-gun talking point presented by the Democrats?

Wow. That’s a winning strategy — typical Fudd.

The truth is, O’Rourke is like so many of his former colleagues in that they think they understand gun owners. They think they get us on some level, that we all secretly support gun control or that we need someone smarter than us to tell us why we should back it.

Well, we don’t. We won’t.

For a decade, we had a federal assault weapon ban and guess what? Nothing freaking happened. It was useless. The crime rate did nothing. More importantly, though, it dropped after the law sunset. So why would another suddenly make us safer?

O’Rourke has cajones, that’s for sure. It takes brass ones–or an IQ lower than a 7-year-old girl’s shoe size–to sit there and think you can bridge the divide on guns in this country when you’re tripping every anti-gun talking point out there.

Oh, he hasn’t said he wants to repeal the Second Amendment, mind you. Few active politicians are going to say that, especially if they’re running for president. Then again, he doesn’t have to, does he?

Frankly, all I’m seeing out of him right now is self-delusion for not just thinking that he’s going to be president, but also in thinking that anyone on this side of the divide on guns will take him seriously.