Governor Mike DeWine and Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted launched their official attack on our gun rights last Monday, and it is bad.
Gun-control radicals in our legislature and across the state are overjoyed, giddy that “Republicans” are buckling to their pressure and introducing gun-control bills they couldn’t dream of getting passed in Ohio.
Democrat Senate Minority leader Kenny Yuko (D-Richmond Heights) praised them, saying “I’m encouraged by Gov. DeWine’s message today… we should work to pass bipartisan legislation as soon as possible.”
Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, who made a horrible disgrace of herself to President Trump following the Dayton killings, gushed that “this is an important first step.”
And the Ohio Mayor’s Alliance, including the ultra-liberal mayors of Cincinnati, Columbus, Kettering and Lancaster, declared that DeWine’s proposal “gives us a real chance to begin changing course and start enacting meaningful gun reform laws.”
Of course, Monday’s introduction of DeWine’s gun-control proposal was no surprise, as he promised such in several news conferences following the Dayton murders.
That’s why Ohio Gun Owners has been working around the clock preparing to fight this proposal tooth and nail in our General Assembly!
The “Proposal”
There are two main tenets to the DeWine/Husted agenda, and Ohio Gun Owners is mobilizing our membership against them BOTH.
1) The first tenet is a “pink” version of Red Flag Gun Confiscation Orders.
Instead of outright calling it the Red Flag Gun Confiscation Order that it is, DeWine and Husted are calling it a “Safety Protection Order” in a feeble attempt to camouflage it, but it is easily identified.
You see, gun owners have defeated a “Red Flag” bill before, as I’m sure you remember Governor Kasich’s HB585 from last General Assembly.
DeWine and Husted know this, and they know that gun owners are geared up and ready to do it again!
So instead of passing a straight-up Red Flag bill, they have repackaged the contents of the Red Flag bill into a “Safety Protection Order” that massively expands Ohio’s “pink slip” process.
Currently, the two-page form (it is pink) that initiates a pink slip process is strictly reserved for people with mental health issues who may be a danger to themselves or others, to have them involuntarily committed for treatment.
As you likely know, an involuntary committal is a prohibitor for firearms ownership.
The Husted/DeWine agenda massively expands those “eligible” to be pink slipped to include anyone supposedly “abusing” alcohol or drugs.
Of course, gun owners know it is ALREADY illegal for someone to use or carry a firearm while they are under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
But this expansion would weaponize the probate court in a way that is virtually identical to a Red-Flag Gun-Confiscation Order!
Scenario
To put this into real-life perspective, think of this:
A vengeful, soon-to-be “ex” could go to the police and initiate a pink slip process against you by telling them that she’s afraid for her safety and that you’ve been drinking, and you could be involuntarily committed to a “treatment facility” for holding up to 72 hours.
Sometime during that 72 hours you’ll be yanked out of your holding cell to have a hearing before a probate court judge and, if you can’t afford a decent lawyer and prove to that judge that your accuser is a liar and that you were not going to commit a crime, you would then be involuntarily committed for “treatment.”
This begs the question: just how in the he!! can you prove you weren’t going to commit a crime that was never committed?
And Site, an “involuntary commitment” triggers a federal and state firearms prohibition, and your gun rights are taken away from you.
This is virtually identical to the Red Flag law because you could have your firearms rights stripped away from you with no charge, no trial, and no conviction of a crime!
And virtually anyone can initiate a pink-slip process against you.
Do you have an ultra-leftwing Bernie Sanders fan in your family?
Do you know a crazed Beto supporter who believes you are evil for owning the firearms Beto and his supporters want to confiscate but that you use to defend yourself and your family?
All someone like that would have to do is tell a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a doctor, a “health officer,” a police officer, a sheriff or maybe even just a deputy that they believe you’re abusing drugs or alcohol and that you threatened them, and all of a sudden you’re in big trouble.
Do you like to tip a few back on the weekend after a hard week at work?
Under the Husted/DeWine proposal, your crazed ex could time the officers’ arrival so that they show up at your house when you are likely over the legal limit, and now your gun rights are on the chopping block.
In effect, DeWine and Husted are trying to swap out the words “Red Flags” for “Pink Slips” and accomplish the exact same policy of gun-control through confiscation without due process.
Let us be clear: depravation of gun rights without the conviction of a crime is the definition of a Red Flag law and the complete destruction of due process.
This is a horrific law, and we’ll fight it aggressively!
2) The second tenet of the DeWine/Husted gun-control agenda is a de facto “Universal Background Checks” scheme through the creation of a “Seller Protection Certificate.”
Again, DeWine and his chief gun control cheerleader, little Jonny Husted, know that gun owners are spoiling for a brawl with any politician that want to pass Bloomberg’s Universal Background Checks.
So, just like they did by renaming Red Flags “Pink Slips,” they are crafting and messaging this policy in a way that creates a de facto statewide gun registry.
Here is how it works:
If you want to buy a firearm, you would need to go to your local sheriff and apply for a background check, and if you pass you would get a “Seller Protection Certificate.”
By going through the background check to get the “certificate” (which is really a license, aka an infringement), your name gets added to the NCIC database as a gun purchaser.
To review something we’ve said previously, the background check system is a total and complete failure.
It has never achieved its stated (pretended) goal of stopping killers – just think of a recent mass killing and you’ll find a killer who passed their background check.
And hardened criminals know that they’ll never get prosecuted for trying to buy a firearm legally, either.
Under the Obama administration, of the roughly 800,000 NICS denials, less than 50 per year were ever recommended for prosecution, and far fewer resulted in a conviction.
In fact, roughly 95% of NICS denials are false positives!
So why are gun-control radicals like Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer and Mike DeWine always trying to expand this complete failure of a system?
The Hartford, CT Courant revealed in 2014 the real reason: the gun-control crowd is deliberately building the NCIC (aka NICS) database as a tool to be used down the road to identify gun owners for widespread firearms confiscation.
That’s why Mike DeWine and Jon Husted are working so hard to create this new “Seller Protection Certificate” — because it adds more gun owners’ names into the massive, centralized government database.
And just so you know, governments, not thugs or street criminals, are the largest killers of innocent citizens in human history.
The Founders knew this, which is why they enshrined our right to self-defense in the Bill of Rights and our own state Constitution.
But it gets worse.
It is already illegal in Ohio to “recklessly” sell a firearm to a criminal. And it is already illegal to straw-purchase firearms for others.
Knowing that, Husted specifically has designed this proposal to, in all practicality, browbeat private sellers into adding their transactions into the government database.
The way he is trying to do that is by leaving the “Seller Protection Certificate” optional, while simultaneously lowering the burden of proof for a prosecutor to nail a seller to the wall if a firearm they sold is ever used in a crime!
And not only is he lowering the burden of proof from “reckless” to “negligent,” he is also increasing the penalty to a 3rd degree felony and up to three YEARS in prison!
Site, it is important not to forget who we are talking about here.
DeWine is INFAMOUS in the gun rights community for his votes as a US Senator to allow gun control organizations to sue firearms manufacturers for crimes committed with firearms they produced.
In fact, that’s why the NRA used to give him an “F” rating before they pulled a political “about-face” moments before the 2018 elections.
This proposal is simply an extension of that lifelong agenda that DeWine’s gun control career exemplifies, the difference now is that Husted is embracing it 100%.
And Ohio’s notorious anti-gun prosecutors like Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley are jumping for joy at the prospects of persecuting gun owners if this law passes!
This bill must be stopped.
Stand and Fight
Site, now is the time to get off the sidelines.
If we are going to make sure our freedom to defend ourselves against thugs and tyrants is intact for our kids and our grandkids, we need to fight back harder at this moment than we’ve ever done before.
That’s why I hope you’ll do two things right away:
First, this bill is being introduced into the Ohio Senate first by ultra-liberal Republican Senator Matt Dolan (R-Cuyahoga County).
As you’ll see, we’ve already done the work for you. Just a few clicks, press submit and you’re done!
But I hope you won’t stop there.
If we’re going to be successful at stopping this onslaught, we need to get far more people involved in this fight.
That’s why I hope you’ll contribute whatever amount you can afford right now to help us.
Perhaps you can afford a major contribution like $1,000 or $500 or $250 as some have already done?
Or maybe $100 or $10 or somewhere in between is more appropriate for your budget?
Whatever amount you can afford, I’m asking that you please be as generous as possible.
It’s time to FIGHT!
For Ohio,
Chris Dorr
Executive Director
Ohio Gun Owners
