Buckeye Firearms Association Responds to Governor DeWine's Press Conference on Background Checks

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine today held a press conference to discuss a plan to fix the background check system for gun purchases in Ohio. This is part of the administration's overall initiative to address violent crime.

The proposal is to enable law enforcement agencies to comply with existing reporting requirements and streamline the process both for adding criminal records to the background check database and for quickly removing people who are not prohibited.

Buckeye Firearms Association agrees that the background check system is broken and supports the concept of enforcing current law rather than passing new laws for background checks. Gun rights advocates and the entire gun industry have long supported fixing the system to include state criminal and mental health records.

Because this concept will be part of a larger bill, we of course need to see the complete and final language to assure that the rights of law-abiding gun owners are not infringed in any way.

On the overall 17-point initiative:
We're glad to see the Governor focus so heavily on mental health and those actually committing crimes. This is the right direction for addressing these issues and a huge step forward from the Kasich administration. Crime and violence are people problems, not weapon problems.

On background checks and crime:
While we support fixing the background check system, we do not support mandatory background checks for personal firearm transfers between individuals. This is a violation of personal property rights, and it won't affect crime at all. Most criminals will never go through a background check. They get their guns through illegal means today and will continue to do so tomorrow.

On protection orders:
We do not support so-called "red flag" laws because we've never seen one that respects due process. We maintain that current law provides all the tools needed to deal with dangerous people. The administration says they're doing something entirely different, but there's nothing in writing. So when there is a bill to look at, we'll read it closely and render our opinion.