Read Senator Terry Johnson's Editorial in the Columbus Dispatch Defending Issue 1 and the 2nd Amendment
COLUMBUS—In case you missed it I wanted to make sure you had a chance to read my latestcolumn in the Columbus Dispatch about why it is critical that we vote 'Yes' on Issue 1.
Last week the far left mayors of Columbus and Cleveland showed the real reason they're against Issue 1. They want to run their own Constitutional Amendment targeting your 2nd Amendment rights.
Violent crime is on the rise in these cities, and instead of enforcing the law and backing the police, these liberal mayors want to blame law abiding citizens who exercise their 2nd Amendment right to own a firearm. I have news for them. Felons don't consult the Ohio Revised Code before committing a car jacking or robbing a convenience store at gun point.
Vote 'Yes' on Issue 1. Protect our Constitution and when you do you're protecting your right to own a firearm from a future far left campaign to pass an amendment taking away your 2nd amendment rights.
Issue 1 simply raises the bar to pass a constitutional amendment to 60% rather than a simple majority. The Ohio Constitution carries greater authority than revised code, and special interests from the coasts know it's a sitting duck for their liberal causes.
Make no mistake, these wealthy out of state progressives are willing to spend millions of dollars in campaign ads to change it.
Election day is Tuesday, August 8th. Please vote 'Yes."
If you cannot open the link to the Dispatch based on a subscription firewall, you can read the column below.
A Yes Vote on Issue 1 Will Protect You,
Your Family, and Your Constitutional Rights
The stakes couldn’t be higher.
Liberal, progressive, anti-gun Democrats will use a no vote on Issue 1 to take away your right to self-defense. They will take away your guns.
This is not an accusation. It is a fact. How do we know? Because they said so. They said the quiet part out loud.
Here’s what Justin Bibb, Cleveland's liberal mayor, told the entire world at a news conference:
“We can use our real political power to change the culture of guns in this state. It starts by voting no on Issue 1, by the way, to make sure we can maybe put a ballot measure on our state constitution to have common-sense gun reform.”
By common sense, he means unconstitutional. He means they will chip away at your Second Amendment right to self-defense until only criminals have guns and law-abiding citizens are left defenseless.
Left defenseless to face the murderous crime culture created by decades of liberal rule in our big cities. Left defenseless to face the violent crime wave unleashed by progressive anti-Second Amendment policies of defunding police and letting criminals walk.
Criminals don’t bother to consult the Ohio Revised Code before robbing a convenience store or committing a carjacking at gunpoint. Yet, the progressive liberal Democrats in charge like Mayor Bibb in Cleveland and Mayor Ginther in Columbus reject accountability and embrace the progressive blame game. They would rather blame law abiding gun owners, than prosecute the career criminal. Vote Yes on Issue 1 or at some point these liberals will demand you surrender your firearms.
Ohio’s big city liberals keep pushing radical gun restrictions on ordinary citizens but the courts keep stopping them from stripping us of our constitutional rights. So far. If Issue 1 is defeated, all bets are off.
These extremists want to defeat Issue 1 so they can change and even overturn anything in our state constitution with a simple majority vote. They will go after your Second Amendment rights tooth and nail. They will eviscerate those rights at the local level and the state level, if they can. We know this to be true. Because they have said so.
At a news conference on the statehouse steps on Thursday, liberal Columbus Mayor Ginther said, "This violence must end and we need our state legislators to use every lever to get the guns off our streets."
Notice what he said. He didn’t say we need to get violent criminals off our streets. He said we need to get guns off our streets. Now you see their real priorities – loud and clear.
By Ginther’s own admission, that is a failed strategy. Columbus did see a welcome drop to 140 homicides in 2022 after a record-breaking 205 the year before. But, as Ginther noted, there have already been 88 homicides in Columbus this year. He also noted the record number of firearms collected by Columbus Police last year, more than 3,300. What does that tell you?
Guns aren’t the problem. The criminals are. But the left will not do anything about that. Their policies reward the criminals and punish the victims. It will only get worse if we do not pass Issue 1.
The “common sense” gun laws they are dying to implement are not an attack on gun violence, they’re an attack on gun violence victims. Radical policies brought by the anti-working class, anti-Constitutional progressives have undermined police departments and unleashed an epidemic of gun violence on our cities. Every day, there are fewer police to protect you.
These extremists who cloak themselves as friends of the people are instead determined to punish law-abiding citizens for the violent crime wave they’ve enabled. Taking away your guns won’t protect you. It will leave you defenseless.
They want to remove your Second Amendment rights, and any other rights that get in their way. Only a Yes vote On Issue 1 can stop them.
Sincerely,
Senator Terry Johnson