Tim Walz is feeling the heat. That was going to happen to literally anyone Vice President Kamala Harris chose as her running mate, of course, but Walz turned out to have just enough baggage to make it easy.

While he likes to pretend he's a gun guy who just wants some common sense gun control, but he wants some pretty radical measures that won't do anything to reduce crime but will have a long-lasting impact on gun ownership in this country.

Which I figure is the point.

But just as Wals is feeling the heat, a lot of people on the other side of the aisle are trying to swoop in and provide cover.

One is science fiction/fantasy author Myke Cole. Yes, he really spells his name that way and he does it on purpose. No, I don't know why.

On paper, Cole sounds like quite the guy. In addition to writing stories for money, he was a Coast Guard reserve officer, worked for the NYPD, and a few other things, and so he wanted to defend Walz because they share similar politics.

Earlier this week, newly internet-beloved Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was wearing a camo hat when he accepted Kamala Harris’ phone call asking him to join her on the presidential ticket. On Wednesday, the Harris campaign said that $1 million worth of “Harris/Walz”–logoed camo hats—looking very similar to a “Midwest Princess” cap sold by singer Chappell Roan—had been purchased. The popularity of the hat gestures toward Walz’s image as a Guy Who Shoots Guns. In her introduction of her running mate, Harris mentioned that Walz repeatedly won the congressional sharpshooting contest; he’s taken a dig at the Republican VP candidate, J.D. Vance, in a quip that doubles as a reminder that Walz routinely goes pheasant hunting in the state where he serves as governor.

For onlookers not as familiar with the internal politics of gun ownership, who hear that the governor served more than two decades in the National Guard, “Walz is a gun guy” may seem like an obvious bona fide to add to his list of Midwestern dad attributes (hot dish fan, turkey observer, state fair attendee). But as demonstrated by Vance’s new “stolen valor” line of attack against Walz, debuted on Wednesday, the GOP will try to poke holes in this image any way it can. At the time of this writing, these holes appear to be small at best, but we are in the early days of a fight that could be as protracted as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign targeting John Kerry’s record in 2004.

If the “stolen valor” attack is familiar, there’s another epithet that’s a little less so. The idea that Walz is a gun poser is apparent in a tweet from former National Rifle Association spokesperson Dana Loesch, who accused Harris of “trying to burnish Walz’s Fudd credentials.” For those who aren’t hip-deep in American gun culture, those words might as well be in another language. What was Loesch on about? What is a “Fudd,” why did the post that Loesch quote-tweeted include that weird web comic, and why might Harris think putting a Fudd on the ticket would help win voters?

First, let's note that Cole basically glosses over the Stolen Valor claim here, not even paying it more than a passing mention. Then again, as a self-proclaimed "spy," one shouldn't be shocked that Cole might overlook someone's claim to have done something they didn't do. And that's the least of his issues, if we're being honest.

But he also goes on to try and justify the Fudd label.

Here's the thing, though. He's doing it at Slate. He's trying to justify being attacked as a backstabbing gun grabber who pretends to really be a gun person at a publication where no one who is a gun person is going to bother to read.

It's hilarious.

Cole says he wants to address the term "Fudd," to try and justify being one since he figures he's a Fudd, too. 

Frankly, that's not something you can justify.

The issue with Fudds isn't that they aren't as rah-rah pro-2A as I am. He claims that it's a slur used against "casual gun owners" or folks that just own one or two guns, but that's not remotely what the term means, and I think Cole knows this. He's trying to muddy the waters so that people will be offended, thinking that we're talking about them when we're not necessarily...assuming, of course, any of them bother to read Slate for a change.

No, the issue is that they're selling out gun owners in order to be accepted by people who will turn on them the moment they can. Right now, Fudds are important to the gun control argument because they can do the "I'm a gun owner but..." thing and justify the claim that no one is trying to take away all of our guns. Yet those hunting weapons Walz loves so much will be on the chopping block sooner or later if the Fudds and their buddies get their way.

It's a case of "we all hang together or we'll all hang separately."

Walz and Cole are ready to sell us out for either acceptance or a genuine belief in anti-gun lies, misrepresentations, and false promises. Neither is deserving of anything beyond scorn.