Beto O’Rourke wants to be the governor of Texas.

Of course, before that he wanted to be president and even earlier he wanted to be a senator from Texas. He’s gotten his posterior handed to him in both of those races.

Yet he’s convinced that this time will be different. This time, he’s convinced he can win.

Which is hilarious considering we’re talking about pro-gun Texas and this is the man who literally said that he was coming for your AR-15s.

However, he’s not doing a lot of talking about that right now.

Even in the immediate aftermath of the deadly school shooting in Oxford, Mich., that killed four students, Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke has maintained his strong position on gun control, but has not made it the focus of his campaign.

At a Saturday rally in Austin, O’Rourke touched briefly on guns, targeting the bill Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law that allows Texans 21-years-old and older to carry a handgun without a permit.

“When I’m governor, we are repealing permitless carry in the state of Texas,” O’Rourke said Saturday.

However, he focused much of his speech – and campaign up to this point – on the power grid failures last winter.

“Five million went without power that February day, and in the weeks – and some cases, thereafter – 700 people, an 11-year-old boy, lost their lives – literally froze to death,” O’Rourke said Saturday.

Now, obviously, we’re not going to talk about the power grid in Texas.

However, I will say this is smart of O’Rourke. Oh, he’d be better off stepping away from the gun control push entirely, but focusing on the power grid is a solid strategy for him.

The problem for him is that he just can’t stop talking about gun control.

See, even if it’s not a focus, it’s still an issue. He’s made some pretty inflammatory anti-Second Amendment comments and he’s standing by them. He’s vowing to repeal constitutional carry–something he simply can’t do without GOP help he won’t get, at least as things currently stand–which isn’t likely to sit well with a lot of folks.

Yet even if he stopped entirely, it wouldn’t help him.

After all, no one would buy that Beto O’Rourke was suddenly not anti-Second Amendment. He’d have to completely disavow his previous stances, become vehemently pro-gun rights, and then, maybe, someone would take it seriously.

They’d also blast him for flip-flopping.

Such is the way of politics, I’m afraid.

Not that it matters because we all know O’Rourke isn’t going down that road. Instead, he’s still pushing gun control, he’s just focused more on the power grid.

Focusing on the power grid, as I said, is probably smart. A lot of Texans remember being cold earlier this year and are likely still a little mad about it.

Unfortunately for him, though, they’re also not likely to forget how candidate Beto O’Rourke made it clear that he doesn’t respect our most fundamental rights, namely the right to keep and bear arms, and that he’ll do whatever he can to take it away.