By: Teresa Mull

Beto O’Rourke’s big dreams of taking your guns as president ended today.

O’Rourke, the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who made a name for himself with threats to seize law-abiding citizens’ firearms, has dropped out of the race.

Politico reports:

Beto O’Rourke abandoned his flagging presidential campaign Friday, writing that it is “clear to me now that this campaign does not have the means to move forward successfully.”

The former Texas congressman had been lagging for months in single digits in public opinion polls and was at risk of not qualifying for the November debate.

“Our campaign has been about seeing clearly, speaking honestly and acting decisively in the best interests of America,” O’Rourke wrote on Medium. “Though it is difficult to accept, it is clear to me now that this campaign does not have the means to move forward successfully."

As a reminder, here’s what O’Rourke said during one of the latest presidential debates:

“The high-impact, high velocity round, when it hits your body shreds everything inside your body because it was designed to do that, so that you would bleed to death on the battlefield. When we see that being used against children, and in Odessa, I met the mother of a 15-year-old girl who was shot by an AR-15 and that mother watched her bleed to death over the course of an hour because so many other people were shot by that AR-15 in Odessa, there weren’t enough ambulances to get to them in time.

“… Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47. We’re not going to allow it to be used against a fellow American anymore.”

When asked how much his proposed buyback program would cost taxpayers, O’Rourke said:

I think a mandatory buyback can be financed with a surcharge that would be paid by gun manufacturers, those who are making the AR-15s and AK-47s and continue to sell them into our communities despite the terror that they’ve inspired and the lives that have been taken.

Teresa Mull is editor of Gunpowder Magazine. Contact her at [email protected].