Confederate

A reader sent along this profile of Bob Owens, better known in these parts as Confederate Yankee. I had mostly lost his story after the passing of the Golden Age of the Blogosphere, but he remained an important figure in online right-wing gun culture until the end:

The following morning, Owens placed his cigarettes, Altoids, pepper spray, knife, phone, and wallet in his pockets. The holster clipped to his belt held the same revolver he’d carried a week earlier at the NRA’s annual meeting. He walked Kate to the school-bus stop and watched her board.

Owens had a few hours before he had to drive to Wake Tech Community College to pick up his older daughter, Maya, who was taking a final. So he kept walking. As he made his way down Sequoia Ridge Drive, he caught the attention of a neighbor, a woman who didn’t know him but was struck by the way he was hanging his head. That man, she thought, seems remarkably sad.

Eventually, Owens arrived at the intersection of Sequoia and South Judd Parkway, not far from his house. Cars whipped by rows of well-kept shrubs. Owens pulled out his phone to post a message on Facebook. “In the end, it turns out that I’m not strong,” he wrote. “I’m a coward, and a selfish son of a bitch. I’m sorry.”

I appreciate that mileage will vary, but I found this quite affecting. Our long-running feud with Owens was only a small part of our story, and we were only a small part of his. The slights are not forgotten; there is nothing about Bob’s ideology that has been made more appealing by the passage of time, or by the means with which he took his life. But whatever else he was, at the end he was a terribly sad man who, unfortunately, had an instrument in his hand to take his own life at his most vulnerable moment.

The last thing that Bob would want is pity from us. To pity him nonetheless feels like an imperative, but is also an extravagant cruelty, so I won’t do it (you’re free to do what you will in the comments). I will say, though, that the end of his pain was the beginning of pain for those who loved him. Rest, Bob. In peace, maybe.