If you saw Chris’ email from over the weekend (below), you know that Senate Bill 357 is on track for its 3rd hearing tomorrow in Matt Dolan’s own Senate Finance Committee.
And you know that it is a stinking pile of hot garbage.
Hopefully you’ve sent in your email (or emails) to your State Senator and Senate President Matt Huffman against it.
If you haven’t, please take action right away!
But now that Dolan and his single proponent has spoken on the bill, it’s our turn to testify.
Of course, Chris and I will be at the Statehouse tomorrow to fight on your behalf, but if you would like to send in your own comments on why SB357 is garbage, here’s a list of steps you need to take to submit your own testimony:
- Type out your testimony in a Word document. This should be addressed to Chairman Matt Dolan and members of the Senate Finance Committee, and explain why Senate Bill 357 should not be passed. You can see a copy of OGO’s as an example HERE.
- Save your document to your computer as a PDF. In Microsoft Word, click on the ‘File’ button in the top left. Click on the ‘Save As’ button, and then click on the drop-down menu where it currently says, ‘Microsoft Document’ and then select ‘PDF’ on the list of options. Name your document something like, “[your name here] Opponent Testimony” Then click the ‘Save’ button.
- Fill out the Witness Information Form HERE. After typing your information directly into the form, save it to your computer as a PDF with your name and ‘witness form’ in the name of the document (refer to #2 above). See Chris’ completed form as an example HERE. NOTE: In the form, make sure to select whether you will be giving your testimony in-person (verbally), or just written for the official record.
- Attach your documents to a new email and get it ready to send. Click on the below email address, or copy this email address into the ‘To’ line of a new email: [email protected]. Then, attach your written testimony document and your completed witness form to the email (should be a paperclip icon or a button that says ‘Insert’).
- Send your email. In the body of the email, be sure to make sure you tell them that this testimony is in opposition to SB357, and make sure you let them know whether you will be testifying in person to the committee or not. When finished, hit ‘Send’!
If you decide to attend the committee hearing tomorrow at 2:15PM, Chris and I will be there to greet folks.
If you can’t, we understand.
After all, we don’t have a billionaire, hate-America gun-control activist like George Soros or Michael Bloomberg funding everything we do, and most people who love America have to work for a living.
But if you cannot make it, we’ll be there to give you all the live updates from the hearing, and what our next steps forward are.
Here at OGO, we are putting MEGA pressure on the entire Ohio Senate, including Senate President Matt Huffman, but we could not do these things without your help and support.
We are hammering the politicians every day, but we are also bringing huge numbers of new gun owners and gun rights supporters into this fight to fight alongside of us.
Any amount you can afford to give today will be put to the front lines immediately.
But most importantly, don’t forget to take action and submit your testimony NOW!
— Rob
On Tuesday afternoon, the Senate Finance Committee is going to hold another hearing for Matt Dolan’s gun-control bill, Senate Bill 357!
SB357 is far WORSE than previous Republican-sponsored Red Flag gun-control bills, and it needs to be stopped.
And we’ve stopped it before: OGO’s grassroots army has stopped every Republican that has tried to pass this in the past: John Kasich, Mike Henne, Stephanie Kunze, John Ecklund, Mike DeWine and Matt Dolan’s previous attempt, SB221.
But now Matt Dolan is at it again, and this time his gun-control agenda is far more dangerous, for a couple of reasons.
- SB357 is a gun-control omnibus bill, meaning that it is packed with a host of gun-control agenda wish-list items, NOT just Red Flag Gun Confiscation alone.
- SB357 is one of the worst versions of Red Flag Gun Confiscation we’ve ever seen because it allows schools, members of your community and even your EMPLOYER to have you red flagged for an involuntary “behavioral risk assessment.” And if you fail to prove you are not a criminal to a taxpayer-funded, bureaucratic “mental health professional,” you lose your gun rights.
- SB357 codifies all but one word of Michael Bloomberg’s Universal Gun Registration scheme, which would outlaw the private sale of firearms between citizens. Any future General Assembly could change the word from “may” to “shall” and it would be over.
- SB357, for the first time, requires cosigning for some adults to purchase firearms.
- SB357, for the first time, requires 72-hour waiting periods for legal adults looking to purchase a firearm.
Worse than all those points is the fact that SB357 is scheduled for its third hearing in as many weeks, and it is clearly being fast-tracked by Republican Leadership in the Senate!
That’s why I’m asking you to contact your State Senator right now and tell them to vote NO on SB357!
We’ll have more information coming out Monday about how you can submit testimony to the committee in opposition to this bill, but for now please take action and fire off your email.
OGO is preparing district-specific, targeted ads to make sure this bill gets quashed, but we can’t go 100% in if we don’t have the resources we need, so please be generous!
For Ohio,
Chris Dorr
Executive Director
Ohio Gun Owners
