Dear Gun-Rights Advocates: Hey, Congratulations!

A concession speech to all you real Americans out there

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

TThere 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…

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