Right now, it’s hard to think of the name Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke and not think of gun control. The former congressman from Texas has made it a centerpiece of his campaign, a campaign that isn’t doing him a lot of favors but sure does seem to be helping gun rights advocates out quite a bit.

However, even he knows you can’t build a campaign off of a single issue, so it’s important that he find other positions on the important issues of the day.

Even if they make no sense considering his gun control stance.

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke claimed during a high-energy stump speech in Iowa that he would be afraid to be a “trans woman of color, who could be killed with complete impunity in this country right now, with no one to follow up or investigate.”

O’Rourke, a former Texas congressman, has been an outspoken advocate of transgender rights since the beginning of his campaign and featured a story on his official Facebook that highlighted the deaths of four trans women in Texas, all of which were being actively investigated. Police in the report vowed to solve the cases and have also asked the FBI to assist them in the investigation.

Transgender women of color have been targeted across this country. They have been attacked. They have been murdered. If…

Posted by Beto O’Rourke on Tuesday, June 4, 2019

 

The problem is, no one is murdered with “complete impunity” in this country. Sometimes people get away with it, sure, but to say they do so with impunity is to pretend that there’s no effort made to find the killer. That’s simply not the case with the exception in a tiny fraction of one percent of the homicides in this country.

But, if transgender women of color are being targeted–and, let’s be honest, there’s no real reason to doubt that at least some have been–then perhaps they should arm themselves.

Personally, I’d recommend AR-15s because of a number of factors which include their lightweight nature making them easy to hold onto, their 30-round magazines helping deal with multiple threats, and their round being sufficient for stopping the bad guy but not so powerful that you unduly risk any bystanders.

That’s just for home, though. AR-15s are a pain to carry on your person. Otherwise, I recommend a good concealed carry firearm and any required permits.

Of course, Beto opposes both of these solutions, which is a shame. One would think that if he valued the lives of innocent trans people, he’d want to make sure they could protect themselves with the most efficient tools possible.

It’s a shame, too, because no one should be victimized. If we lived in a perfect world, we wouldn’t need to worry about anyone being victimized. Only, we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in this one.

At the very moment Beto is getting headlines for screaming “Hell yeah,” that he was going to take our guns away, he highlights a story of just why we need more people armed. Yes, that includes many who would disagree with me on so many other political causes because personal safety really shouldn’t be a partisan issue. It’s a human right.

If only Beto managed to understand that.