7 major Buckeye Firearms Association wins of 2024

Success is achieved in earnest through effort and will.

It isn't as simple as declaring "no compromise" and expecting results. It takes a lot of communication and education. It takes understanding and a great deal of trust and mutual respect.

That is why Buckeye Firearms Association has been a successful organization since its founding more than 20 years ago, and it is why 2024 brought many more successes.

Here's a look at seven of our many accomplishments in 2024, in no particular order:

1. State law prohibiting requirement of firearm liability insurance. This was part of Senate Bill 58, which spells out that gun owners in Ohio cannot be required to purchase liability insurance as a condition of possessing or purchasing a firearm. It isn't even clear whether insurance companies would offer such a policy. And as is often the case, such a requirement would have transferred the penalty for violence from the criminal to the law-abiding gun owner.
2. State law prohibiting firearm and/or ammunition fee requirements. This also was part of SB 58 and prohibits the requirement by any governmental agency to enforce a fee for the possession of a firearm, part of a firearm, its components, its ammunition, or a knife. Anti-gun cities and states can't outlaw firearms outright, so their workaround is to make purchases of guns and ammo too cost-prohibitive. This law keeps that from happening.
3. State law prohibiting merchant codes. This bill, which was originally Senate Bill 148 but was rolled into SB 58, prohibits the financial industry from creating a code specifically aimed at purchases from firearms retailers. Such an intrusive code could have been used for the tracking of firearms purchases, which could then be monitored by financial companies. Even if you bought only clothes from a gun dealer, that code would have said it came from a gun dealer.
4. State law providing civil immunity for acts of self-defense. This legislation, which was Senate Bill 32, generally grants civil immunity to a person who acts in self-defense or in the defense of others and protects members and/or guests of a nonprofit corporation under certain circumstances, such as during the commission — or imminent commission — of an offense of violence.
5. Burying several anti-gun bills. All the usual suspects in the Ohio House of Representatives and Senate tried numerous ways to attack law-abiding gun owners. We worked with legislators to keep away such ideas as rolling back stand-your-ground laws, permitless carry, and even state preemption itself, requiring trigger locks, unconstitutional red-flag laws, universal background checks, mandatory 10-day waiting periods for gun purchases, mandatory storage, a firearms registry, a bump stock ban, and even a complete ban on all semi-automatic handguns.
6. Huge BFA-supported wins for state and federal candidates. BFA PAC endorsed in 111 separate races at the state and federal level in the November election. Of those, we had 89 wins, representing a solid 80%. And, of course, BFA PAC-endorsed Donald Trump won a historic comeback victory to become the 47th president of the United States. BFA PAC-endorsed Bernie Moreno won a decisive victory over anti-gun Sherrod Brown, helping to seize power for Republicans in the U.S. Senate. And in the three Ohio Supreme Court races, all three BFA PAC-endorsed candidates won by large margins, helping to ensure that future Second Amendment cases will be decided based on the Constitution and the law, rather than on personal opinion. Republicans now hold a 6-1 majority.
7. No gerrymandering of legislative districts. In one of the biggest victories of the election, BFA-opposed Issue 1 went down in flames. Backed by an army of left-wing organizations and paid for with over $40 million in mostly out-of-state dark money, this deceptive ballot measure would have locked in gerrymandering in favor of Democrats indefinitely.

BFA and gun rights in general had many other successes in the Buckeye State, too. Among them were these:

• BFA hosted a seminar featuring active-shooter expert Ed Monk, who drew an enormous crowd in March.
• An appeals court panel ruled in June that Ohio's preemption laws on gun control matter and that Cincinnati leaders can't arbitrarily ignore them.
• BFA in April celebrated the 20th anniversary of concealed carry in Ohio, which became the law April 8, 2004, making Ohio the 46th state to legalize it. BFA volunteers played a key role in that battle.
• The Canton Park Commission removed firearms from its list of prohibitions in city parks after a local resident pointed out that the city ordinance violated state law.
• BFA worked with Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost's office to provide clarity on whether law-enforcement officers were permitted to carry concealed firearms at public events. As a result, the office issued a statement of clarity.

BFA works to pass pro-gun legislation, educate the public through ongoing media relations, provide high-quality firearms classes, and make available a wide variety of resources for gun owners.

While anti-gun groups get their funding and support from wealthy activists or big corporations, BFA gets its funding and support from citizens like you who value their Constitutional rights.

Please consider supporting us as we prepare to accomplish our goals for 2025.

Joe D. "Buck" Ruth is a longtime small-game hunter and gun owner who spent nearly three decades in the news industry.