Robert Francis O’Rourke, the demented mascot of young progressives and social justice warriors, is not going to win the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Not even close. Rush Limbaugh has a better chance. Donald Trump has a better chance. I have a better chance. That said, he will manage to secure another hotly contested position: Most Annoying Democrat of 2019 – or MAD.

Yes, you read that correctly. He will beat out even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

It is not unreasonable to at least consider the possibility that O’Rourke has some genuine psychological problems. Having been trained to profile potentially dangerous or unstable individuals, this author has some real concerns about O’Rourke’s state of mind. That statement is made without a trace of either malice or sarcasm. Everything about O’Rourke screams personality disorder, from his ridiculous vanity videos to his speech pattern to his body language.

None of the other Democratic candidates can fairly be judged in the same way. While Joe Biden appears to be struggling with both memory and reality, the worse than can be said of any other Democrat running for the presidential nomination would be related to ideology or agendas – but not to mental health. O’Rourke is different, though: He is immature at best and genuinely psychotic at worst.

Open War on the Second Amendment

Although O’Rourke will not be the one to challenge Trump for the White House, he may have irreparably damaged whatever chances the Democrats had for making gun control an election issue. For years, Democrats have pretended to respect the Second Amendment while pushing for evermore incremental infringements upon the constitutional right of Americans to keep and bear arms. During the last Democratic Party primary debate, the inflatable tube man from Texas blew that pretense out of the water.

While several other candidates have supported the idea of gun “buy-backs,” allowing them to avoid using the word “confiscation,” O’Rourke – unable to restrain himself – blurted out: “Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.” In doing so, he dispelled, once and for all, the illusion that his party intends to honor the spirit of the Second Amendment.

Another Immortal Soundbite

Just like Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comment, O’Rourke’s statement will never die. The eventual 2020 nominee will have to deal with that word – “take” – throughout the presidential campaign. Whoever runs against Trump will, or should, be repeatedly challenged to either support or reject the idea that a future Democratic president will order federal authorities to take semi-automatic rifles from law-abiding gun owners.

Shortly after the primary debate, Texas state Representative Briscoe Cain posted O’Rourke’s gun confiscation vow on Twitter, along with his own response that “my AR is ready for you Robert Francis.” O’Rourke accused the Texas Republican of making a “death threat” and reported it to the FBI.

Perhaps “Beto” should read the Declaration of Independence, which clearly states that the American people have a right and a duty to abolish a government that denies them their rights. Cain was not threatening to hunt down and kill O’Rourke; he was stating his intention to protect himself from government tyranny – by force if necessary – which is exactly why the Second Amendment exists.

During a September 13 appearance on MSNBC, O’Rourke made a half-hearted pretense at walking back his irresponsible debate comment. He claimed that rather than law enforcement officers going door to door to seize weapons, he would expect gun owners to voluntarily hand over their guns. “I’m going to work with police chiefs, with sheriffs with law enforcement to make sure we implement this in the most effective way possible. It will by and large be dependent with [sic] people complying with the law.”

The question is: What if gun owners decide not to voluntarily comply with an unconstitutional law? O’Rourke added that this “voluntary” compliance would still be mandatory.

Huh?

This is all moot, of course; even if a new ban on “assault weapons” became law, it would not be able to include semi-automatic rifles already purchased, since that would entail automatically classing millions of law-abiding Americans as criminals purely for owning an item they were previously allowed to own. Moreover, gun confiscation – even if one chooses to call it a “buy-back” – cannot be implemented by executive order. If a president could simply nullify a constitutional right by executive order then America would, indeed, have become a dictatorship necessitating armed rebellion, as prescribed by the Declaration of Independence.

So what is O’Rourke’s deal? He appears to be doing nothing more than prolonging an appallingly mismanaged presidential campaign in order to feed his own ego, line his own pockets, or both. That he is flirting with denying people their rights – ones guaranteed by the law of the land – in order to do so is a damning indictment of his character and, perhaps, of the characters of anyone who continues to support him.

~

Read more from Graham J Noble or comment on this article.