Talk about CRINGE.

Anti-gunners like Tim Walz (who feign support for the 2A but support gun bans and gun confiscation) get together each year for a friendly marksmanship competition.

Guns for thee and not for me… pic.twitter.com/dBEhbfY8Jw

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) August 7, 2024

The usefulness of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to the 2024 Democrat party ticket was fully illustrated by a report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette which quoted Vice President Kamala Harris at a Philadelphia campaign event.

Walz, Harris told the crowd, “is a hunter and a gun owner who believes, as the majority of gun owners do, that we need reasonable gun safety laws in America.”

So far, Democrats have a perfect foil for gun owners who are supporting former President Donald J. Trump in his bid for a comeback second term. Here’s Walz, the upper Midwest hunter and gun owner who allegedly represents “the majority of gun owners” when it comes to supporting legislation designed to put a knee on the neck of their Second Amendment rights with the same effect as that Minneapolis cop had on George Floyd.

"In his role as governor, Walz “expanded background checks and increased penalties for illegal firearm sales,” Harris told the crowd.

“And together,” Harris declared, “when we win in November, we are finally going to pass universal background checks, red flag laws, and an assault weapons ban.”

Walz, as noted over the weekend by the Washington Post, represented a “rural swatch” of Minnesota when he was in Congress, and even got an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association. The newspaper noted he “often proudly sported a camo hat featuring the affirmation ‘NRA ENDORSED.’”

“But,” the WaPo explained, “as he sought his party’s nomination in a state that had backed the Democratic presidential nominee since 1976, Walz was equivocal when asked about access to guns.”

The Washington Post story then quotes Rob Doar, senior vice president at the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, who recalled how Walz “tried to find a middle ground” by portraying himself as a strong Second Amendment advocate who “also supported common-sense regulation.” And here the WaPo turns Walz into the gun owner-turned-everyday-man trying to be reasonable in an often irrational battle over Second Amendment rights.

“The moment showed how Walz went about moderating his stance on guns — slowly at first, then seemingly all at once,” the WaPo reported.

In the past, Hollywood might have cast Jimmy Stewart or Gary Cooper in the Walz role. Today, the first choice might be Tom Hanks, since Harrison Ford is just too old for the part.

It was after the October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas and the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., which, according to Doar, caused Walz to go “full-bore on gun control.”

To its credit, the Post-Gazette report also quoted Trump talking to a Pennsylvania crowd back in February, promising, “When I’m back in the Oval Office, no one will lay a finger on your firearms.”

Trump has not changed his mind on the right to keep and bear arms, even after being shot at a rally in Butler, Pa. He traveled to Grand Rapids, Mich., last month to tell a big crowd, “I will fully uphold our very important but under siege Second Amendment as I did for four years, and I got the full endorsement from the NRA,” the Post-Gazette noted.

Walz, on the other hand, turned corners back in early 2018 following the Parkland High School tragedy. In an op-ed published by the Minneapolis Star Tribune at the time, Walz told readers, “I’ve never been a member of the NRA, but I know many gun-owning Minnesotans still think of the organization as it was when I was growing up: as an advocate for sportsmen and women that held gun-safety classes." Today, though, it’s the biggest single obstacle to passing the most basic measures to prevent gun violence in America — including common-sense solutions that the majority of NRA members support.”

That was a pretty big claim from a guy who said he’s never been an NRA member. How would he know what NRA members really think?

This is Tim Walz’s real value to the Democrat ticket. He’s the enlightened gun owner and hunter who says “something” must be done, and he’s “walking the walk” on that issue by running for vice president next to career anti-gunner Kamala Harris, who was sued by the Second Amendment Foundation while she was California attorney general on gun rights issues.

At some point, Walz will be challenged to define “common-sense” gun control laws—er, gun “reforms”—and it will be up to America’s grassroots Second Amendment activists to determine whether Walz’s answers make any sense at all, much less common sense.

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About Dave Workman

Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.