Beto O’Rourke is almost a gift to the pro-gun side. He’s been saying everything we’ve argued Democrats believe. Before, the only ones who would actually verbalize what we all knew were random people on social media who had no standing on the national stage. It was easy to dismiss those voices as irrelevant.

Now, though, you’ve got a presidential candidate and former party golden boy saying the precise things we’ve been promised that no one wanted.

O’Rourke’s decision to actually say these things has somewhat torn the party asunder on the issue, it seems.

 Beto O’Rourke’s proposal to implement a mandatory buyback program for assault weapons ignited a split among 2020 Democrats at the Giffords/March for Our Lives gun safety forum on Wednesday.

…

What they’re saying: “We have a way sometimes as a party … of getting caught, just when we’ve amassed the discipline and the force to get something done right away, a shiny object makes it harder for us to focus,” Buttigieg said when asked about the buybacks debate among 2020 Democrats.

• “I heard some of the comments made today on this stage,” O’Rourke said when it was his turn. “Those who are worried about the polls, or want to triangulate or talk to consultants or listen to focus groups — and I’m thinking about Mayor Pete on this one, who I think probably wants to get to the right place but is afraid of doing the right thing right now.”

There’s a bit of a battle going on right now within the party based on O’Rourke’s proposal.

However, there’s also the flip side of the coin. From the pro-gun side, it’s quite clear that the Democrats are fully embracing their anti-gun side. It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that a prominent pro-gun name argues that Beto’s gun-grab is the Democratic Party of today.

Nationally syndicated radio host and former spokeswoman of the National Rifle Association (NRA) Dana Loesch said on Thursday that former Vice President Joe Biden’s proposed crackdown on assault-style weapons is the same as 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke.

“All their plans are essentially identical to Beto O-Rourke’s. This is the Democrat Party now,” Loesch told “Fox & Friends,” disputing O’Rourke’s claims that a majority of Americans agree with his position on the issue.

Is Loesch wrong?

Not really. Almost all of them either include some variation of an assault weapon ban. Further, none of the leading candidates are arguing about the morality of such a ban and buyback scheme. None are arguing that it’s wrong or unconstitutional. At best, they’re arguing that now is a bad time for such rhetoric.

In other words, it’s clear that none of them actually oppose the measure on the grounds of it being wrong, only that the timing itself is what’s wrong.

That’s a problem for me.

All the Democrats running are really saying is that they favor taking our guns away, they just don’t want to do it right now. They aren’t debating the morality of the validity of the proposal. They aren’t taking issue with it on Second Amendment grounds or anything of the sort.

Like Dana says, this is the Democratic Party of today.

They might be a little split on the issue, but it’s really all in the fiddly bits, not on the substance of the issue.