Tuesday, May 4 is Election Day in Ohio! Because voter turnout in primary elections is historically quite low, die-hard gun owners who Vote Freedom First are able to have an even bigger…
Your Duty to Vote
Editor’s Note: Primary Election Day is Tuesday, May 4. Please do your duty, and make plans to vote. DOWNLOAD the Buckeye Firearms Association voter guide! Print and distribute to your friends and family! Help spread the word and encourage people to vote their gun rights freedoms first!
By Jeff Knox
I propose that the “firearms fraternity” begin placing as much emphasis on voting and voter education as we do on safety and safety education.
Unintentional firearms injuries and fatalities have dropped by some 60% over the past 20 years while the number of firearms in circulation has more than doubled. These amazing results are not due to government programs, laws, or regulations. They are a result of education and an almost universal acceptance of and insistence on adherence to the basic rules of firearms safety. Gun owners not only practice firearms safety, they advocate for it and expect it from others, and they shun anyone who fails to abide by the rules. The improving firearms safety record is a stellar example of positive peer pressure. We in the firearms fraternity need to extend that success into the realm of voting.
Gun owners should see voting in every election, and having a general understanding of the candidates’ positions regarding rights, as a core obligation for themselves, their friends, and their family. Those who do not vote – regardless of their excuse or rationalization – should be seen as letting down their brothers and sisters in arms. They are failing in their obligation as citizens, and empowering the enemies of liberty. In short, GunVoters need to look at gun owners who don’t vote with the same incredulity that they would look at a person who recklessly waves a gun around with a finger on the trigger. Excuses like “My vote doesn’t matter” should be received with the same disdain shown when someone says “Hey, it isn’t loaded.”
Judge Eugene Lucci for 11th District Court of Appeal
By Jim Irvine
Few offices are as important as judicial offices, and few candidates are as hard to cast informed votes about as the judicial candidates. The appeals courts are particularly important. They can overrule a lower court, but more importantly they set a precedent the lower court must follow. They can only be overruled by the Ohio Supreme Court, and most cases never reach that court.
Buckeye Firearms Association has endorsed Eugene Lucci for the 11th District Court of Appeals. We do not make a lot of judicial endorsements, but when we do, it’s critical that gun owners support our endorsed candidates.
Divorce is often an ugly situation with no real “winners.” Child custody and terms of a joint custody arrangement can be difficult for all involved. Making a “fair” ruling can difficult, but sometimes there is a ruling that is clearly “wrong.” Imagine how it would feel if a court ruled that you “should not have any firearms on his person during the time when the minor child is with him.”
This is from an actual ruling in Eggleston vs. Eggleston (CASE NO. 2006-T-0023).
Gun shows protesters take aim at the wrong target
By Gerard Valentino
The scourge of violent crime is tearing apart our communities and often strikes in our poorest neighborhoods. Often, it is the children that bear the brunt of the violence and often live in terror because of their neighborhoods are under the control of violent gangs.
Each day countless Ohioans in such neighborhoods are victimized due to their lack of access to the best self-defense tool ever devised – the firearm. But, it isn’t just gun laws that are responsible for the success criminals have enjoyed over the last 30 years.
Legislation to repeal D.C. gun control laws introduced in House and Senate
By Jim Shepherd
Senators Jon Tester and John McCain have introduced bipartisan legislation that would repeal most gun laws in the District of Columbia. The Second Amendment Enforcement Act, would overrule the District’s deliberately complicated registration requirements and would prevent enactment of regulations that prohibit the carrying of firearms in public places. It also puts the bridle on Police Chief Cathy Lanier’s discretionary power to deny licenses to law-abiding citizens.
Companion legislation was introduced in the House by Representatives Travis Childers (D-MS) and Mark Souder (R-IN).
Today, Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty, Chief Lanier and the District Council continue to thumb their collective noses at the Supreme Court’s Heller decision from 2008. If the District had abided by that ruling, this new legislation would have been unnecessary. Of course, expecting the District’s government to do anything responsibly might be setting the bar a bit too-high.
“The city’s resistance to change has been both obstructive and childish, ” says Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “it’s time for grown-ups in Congress to stop this nonsense.”
Other than his generous representation of Congress, I couldn’t agree more.
Two Buckeye Firearms Assoc.-endorsed bills receive hearings
By Jim Irvine
SB247, a bill which will bring Ohio’s restoration of rights in line with Federal law and United States Supreme Court ruling, received its first hearing on Wednesday in the Senate Judiciary on Criminal Justice Committee. The bill’s primary sponsor, Sen. Jason Wilson, testified about the need for the bill and how his bill will correct the problem affecting many Ohio gun owners. (see below for transcript)
The committee also gave SB239 (Restaurant Carry & Car Carry Rules Fix) its third hearing. Three people testified in support of the bill, including Robert Kelley and Richard Clark who did a good job explaining their reason why current law is flawed and how SB239 will solve their problems.
The third person offering testimony, Texas state legislator Suzanna Gratia Hupp, came at the invitation of Buckeye Firearms Association.
Mayors Against Illegal Guns TV ads pose question for DeWine & Kasich
By Chad D. Baus
In 2009, Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), the gun control front group run by billionaire New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, made news for apparently having added the names of mayors to his group without permission.
In 2010, Bloomberg hopes to make news for a different reason. According to a recent MAIG press release, the gun ban group is spending more than a quarter of a million dollars to release a series of television commercials on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and in local markets in Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Virginia. The ads call on senators from those states to join a minority that wishes to ban private sales of firearms between individuals at gun shows.
Using the 11th anniversary of the infamous killing spree in the “no-guns” Columbine high school as a backdrop (and repeating the lie that requiring background checks at gun shows could have stopped that attack – it wouldn’t have), Bloomberg is hoping to pressure three Democrats (Mark Udall [CO], Jim Webb and Mark Warner [VA]) and four Republicans (Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins [ME], Scott Brown [MA], and George Voinovich [OH]) to go against the will of the American people by supporting legislation that would regulate gun shows out of existence.
It seems clear that Bloomberg is desperate to pressure a vote before the 2010 elections, when many expect that voters will rid Washington D.C. of even more anti-gun legislators. (For example, here in Ohio, George Voinovich has wisely decided not to seek reelection, and staunchly pro-gun Rob Portman seeks to replace him as the Republican nominee.)
Since briefly-“Republican” Mayor Michael Bloomberg seeks to make the mythical “gun show loophole” an issue this campaign season, questions should naturally be asked of the two Republican candidates for statewide office in Ohio who have previously cast votes in support of this gun control proposal, but are now voicing support for the Second Amendment in their campaigns.
Springtime is Prime Time for Youth to Enjoy the Shooting Sports
Parents Can Choose from Shotgun, Rifle and Handgun Programs
Warmer weather and more hours of daylight make spring the perfect time to introduce youngsters to the shooting sports. To help get children properly started in these safe, adult-supervised and fun activities, parents have many programs from which to choose.
Programs exist for practically every age level, allowing youngsters to find the type of target shooting that best suits their interests and abilities, whether it’s shooting clay pigeons with a shotgun or silhouette targets with a rifle or falling steel plates with a handgun. Certified instructors and adult coaches ensure that youngsters understand and follow the rules of firearm safety in addition to learning marksmanship skills that will help them enjoy these sports with friends and family for years to come.
State numbers prove vast majority of CCW licensees comply with gun laws; Ohio gun ban extremist still unsatisfied
By Chad D. Baus
Do a few bad apples truly ruin the bunch? Do groups of people truly deserve to be judged by the very worst among them?
That’s exactly what anti-gun extremists do when they exploit despicable acts of violence, or point to a random example of illegal firearms misuse to support their effort to ban firearms ownership and defensive use.
Recently, The Cleveland Plain Dealer published a story entitled “State numbers show majority of concealed-carry permit holders comply with gun laws.”
While it is good to have that type of data made available to the public, and while The Plain Dealer article is surprisingly well-balanced examination of the issue, quotes from Ohio gun ban extremists Toby Hoover suggesting that one recent questionable act by a license-holder should be grounds for cracking down on ALL license-holders deserve attention.
Our Appleseed Experience
By Aaron Kirkingburg
I awoke early in the morning, most of the gear already loaded in the truck. It would be an hour and a half drive down to Athens County Fish and Game where our first Appleseed experience awaited. I woke my oldest daughter, who would be with me on the firing line for the weekend. She prepared for the ride with stoic anticipation. We had only the vaguest idea what we were in for that first day, but looked forward to every minute of it, if for no other reason than this would be a weekend that father and daughter would spend together on the range.
As I drove in the pre-dawn light down the twisted curvy roads that carve their way through the Hocking Hills, my thoughts were on the rifle instruction we would receive that day, and whether my skills would be honed enough over the course of this weekend to earn the coveted “Rifleman” patch. Would my daughter enjoy herself enough that first day to willingly participate the second? I wished more of my family had been able to come along, but glad I would be sharing the time with my daughter and my cousin who was meeting us there. What will this place be like? How will the people be? Is it going to live up to my expectations?