Dear Gun-Rights Advocates: Hey, Congratulations!

A concession speech to all you real Americans out there

A prayer and candle vigil organized by the city of El Paso on August 4, 2019. Photo: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty

There comes a time to put aside petty partisan differences and extend a hand across the aisle to your fellow countrymen. Even though I am a progressive who has always supported stronger, saner gun safety laws, today I offer my somber, somewhat grudging, but heartfelt congratulations to gun-rights advocates on what will always be remembered as a great day for the second amendment.

This weekend’s double-header is only gratuitous confirmation of what was already a foregone conclusion: You have won. The right to bear arms is, evidently, inalienable. No argument can persuade you, no slaughter can shame you into second-guessing your convictions, or giving up an inch of ground. The corpses in the aisles, the widowers and orphans, the prosthetics and colostomy bags, the sidewalk altars and pint-sized caskets, are all testaments to your victory. This is your country. The one you wanted.

This is an emotional time for all Americans, but for none so much as gun owners, whose shock and sorrow are tempered with very real fears and concerns for the future of gun rights in this country. So let me also offer my sympathies to the real victims of this tragedy (forgotten, as always, in the mainstream media’s maudlin focus on the faces of the dead, the grieving families, the candlelight vigils): innocent, law-abiding gun owners, who will inevitably find their constitutional rights under assault once again. Do not be discouraged by this brief spate of bad PR: we all know there’ll be a lot of scary, hysterical talk about new restrictions, waiting periods and background checks, bump stocks and silencers, but we also know it’s just so much grandstanding for the cameras, and it’ll all blow over after a few days, and soon be forgotten again.

The corpses in the aisles, the widowers and orphans, the prosthetics and colostomy bags, the sidewalk altars and pint-sized caskets, are all testaments to your victory.

It is thanks to you, who have donated to the National Rifle Association and phoned your representatives and stood firm, time and time again, in the face of…