Don't Forget About Candidates in Local and State Elections!

I’ve been voting since the mid-1980s and have heard from people countless times about how important the vote for president is, but then these same people had no idea who their state representatives were. Sure, election yard signs for president are important, but political yard signs and voting are not enough. Regular contact with your state and local reps is vital to maintain a true understanding of where your representatives stand, and you cannot rely on political organizations either. The Republican Party will back the Republican, but you cannot just give candidates a free pass because the party, or even a gun rights group, gave them the thumbs up.

A great example is how the NRA gave Kathleen Hochul an “A” rating on gun rights in 2012. Now, New York Governor Hochul is one of the most anti-2nd Amendment politicians in the USA and New York is the absolute worst state for guns rights even when compared to most countries in Europe, which allow their citizens to own many guns that are banned in NY. Pathetic, but the NRA was giving out endorsements to politicians who didn’t deserve them as far back as I can remember, and that caused a lot of problems in Ohio when I was a 2A activist in my earlier days.

Some may be thinking, “What does it matter regarding the Second Amendment as to who gets elected to township trustee or county clerk? Those positions don’t normally deal with gun rights.” Never forgot that almost all politicians start at the bottom. Hochal was first elected to Erie County clerk in 2007. In 2011, she was elected to congress for New York’s 26th district. Had NY gun owners held her feet to the fire regarding gun rights, and got the real story instead of what an NRA bulletin stated, possibly, she could have been defeated in a primary or at least pushed out from ever running for a higher office. In June of 2024, I was able to attend a private machine gun shoot in northeastern Ohio called the Grub-N-Guns Shoot. That is where I met Ohio State Senator Sandra O’Brien who came to speak about her support for gun rights. The following is my interview with her.

DeNiro: Hi, Vincent DeNiro, editor in chief of Firearms News magazine. Today, I’m at the Grub and Guns Shoot – this is a private machine gun and gun shoot in Ohio, and I’ve been going to gun shoots like these since the early 1980s. A lot of people don’t know that Ohio has probably some of the best gun rights in the whole United States and it happened with gun owners being very active throughout especially the ‘80s, the ‘90s, into the 2000s. You may remember, if you were in the Youngstown area around 1989, I led the defeat of the first assault weapons ban in the United States – that was after the Patrick Purdy shooting. And we have a really great group of gun owners back then, today we have the Buckeye Firearms Association, which is one of the most active and one of the most effective gun rights organizations, state-level, in the United States. And standing next to me is Senator Sandra O’Brien, who represents…Which areas do you represent?

O’Brien: Ashtabula, Trumbull and Geauga Counties, Ohio’s 32nd senate district.

DeNiro: Fantastic. So, you’re here, so you obviously like the Second Amendment.

O’Brien: I am a huge supporter of our Second Amendment, and I fight for it, to keep it every chance I get.

DeNiro:  Awesome, awesome. In Ohio, that’s Article 1 Section 4 of our state Constitution. So, you were just telling a few of the people here, you said that there have been even some Republicans maybe bringing up gun control now and then, and, go ahead, I’ll let you go from there.

O’Brien: Our gun rights are to protect us, giving us rights for personal protection. I told people I want it to protect myself from government, and they look at me and say, “But you’re government!” I said, “Right, so listen to what I’m saying! We do not want a government where they have the guns, and we don’t because we will lose our Constitutional Republic. And there are enough of us in the Ohio senate who believe strongly in the state rights, but our federal rights, this is federal! Our Second Amendment are for us individually to be able to carry firearms to protect us and our property. It is very, very clear. And I have no tolerance for any type of control on our firearms, because once we open that up, the opposing side just comes in for a bigger bite of the apple, until the whole apple is gone. So, I’m just a strong supporter. We don’t need gun control, we need crime control in our country. That’s the problem. I have a real issue with coming after law-abiding citizens, taking away our right to bear arms. That’s wrong. They are not criminals.

DeNiro: Well, that’s very well-said!  It’s very refreshing to hear that, you know, from a senator, because a lot of times, you see people running for office, especially on a Republican side, but also a democrat side, and you’ll see them in a campaign ad, someone’s running, and they have a double-barrel shotgun over their shoulder and they’re walking around saying how they support the Second Amendment. And my answer to that is, that has nothing to do with Second Amendment, you can own a double-barrel shotgun in almost every country in the world, so the Second Amendment has to do with defending against tyranny and genocide, not just robbers and rapists, because that’s the easy way a politician says they support the Second Amendment, “Well this is just for robbers and rapists.” And that’s why with the Bruin decision, the Heller decision, although they’re very good and happy we have them, they don’t define the type of firearms that we’re supposed to own, and under the Constitution, we are supposed to own the same weapons as the military, period. Period. Because it’s non-sensical if you tell somebody, “Oh, I’m for the Second Amendment, but machine guns should be banned.” It doesn’t make sense, you know? Or they’ll say, “Oh, I’m for the Second Amendment because it’s a guarantee against tyranny, but I don’t want people owning machine guns or bazookas or mortars or whatever,” when, how are you supposed to defend yourself against tyranny when they have machine guns and everything else. That’s where the disconnect is, and as long as they just talk about just robbers and rapists as the only reason they’re supposed to own a gun, then we’re going to continue to see bans on magazines over 10 rounds and so-called assault weapons and so forth. So, it’s very good that you have a great understanding of that.

O’Brien: I’ve seen actual surveys of criminals in prison, where they say, “We are more afraid of citizens with guns than we are of the police.” And that was very eye-opening to me.

DeNiro: Oh, absolutely. I used to be a deputy sheriff up in Mahoning County 30 years ago, and I can tell you, I heard the same thing. Working in the jail, you heard the same thing.

O’Brien: Right, right.

DeNiro: So, what’s next? What’s coming up for you, as far as the Second Amendment? We are pretty solid in Ohio; we’ve gotten a lot of great reforms in Ohio. We’re not the same state we were 30 years ago. Although, back 30 years ago, Ohio had the highest machine gun ownership, only second to Texas, back 30 years ago, so that’s something a lot of people don’t know. But it seems so far, things are really good. We’ve improved on concealed carry. I testified with Larry Pratt, David Koppel, and others, back in 1992, or may have been 93 or 94, I can’t remember, but when we were first trying to get concealed carry in Ohio, and the one bill that the democrats said that they would go ahead and consider would be a bill that was so restrictive that if you had your gun in an ankle holster and you pulled into a parking lot, and there was a store in the plaza that sold liquor, that was a felony!

O’Brien: Exactly!

DeNiro: It was ridiculous. So that’s why we didn’t get concealed carry ‘til about, you know eight, ten years later, we worked that out. And since then, we’ve really got everything worked out. We have a Republican trifecta in the house and the senate, and in the governor’s office, and, you know, we have very strong leadership, so we’re really in great shape. A lot of the western states that were considered all the “free” states and very free for Second Amendment, they’re falling like dominos out there. So, yeah, we’re lucky to have people like you safeguarding our rights …

O’Brien: Thank you!

DeNiro: At the senate level.

O’Brien: I agree. Your lobbyists are very effective. Buckeye Firearms, and there are a few others. They are effective, and they know who the supporters are, and they just want to make sure if anything comes up, we don’t need any amendments. But most of us are on the same page when it comes to gun rights. Most of the members that support it, we support it, actually, you know, no-nonsense. It’s very nice now with concealed carry. I have my concealed carry license, but you know you had to go through the training and all that.

DeNiro: Sure.

O’Brien: When people would say, you know, “Well why are you taking that away, just allowing you to have it?”  I said, “Well, what if I just was carrying it and then I put it over my jacket, now I’m into the concealed carry area, because you can’t see it. And it’s wrong. We should have no restrictions on our firearms rights, it’s just wrong.”

DeNiro: Absolutely! Well, how can people – do you have a website – do you have a place where people can go and look at what bills are being voted on and what you’re involved in, like different bills you might be sponsoring, anything like that?

O’Brien: Right.

DeNiro: Go ahead and tell the listeners.

O’Brien: Right. You can go on the Ohio Senate, you can go on the Ohio channel and find all of us. Everything is actually recorded, like we’re recording now, so you can go back and hear testimony in committee or you can hear testimony on the floor. You can always get to my office, it’s Sandra Obrien in the Ohio Senate dot gov, but if you go to any of these sites, you can pull it up and see the numbers. People oftentimes ask me what’s the best way to communicate with you. Well, a senator represents over 35,000 people – that’s a lot of people – the best way is probably email. We still do snail mail. And you can call the office; probably you’ll talk to one of my staff members, and they are great, and they report to me on the calls coming in. But for the most part, you probably are pretty safe with me and a lot of my, I will say Republican peers, because we’re the ones holding the fort for you, with your help, coming in and testifying. But again, here’s what I would say, when you have a candidate running, you need to ask them how they feel about supporting our right to keep and bear arms, and if you see them down the middle, then tell them, “I’m going to put them in the negative camp.” You know?  

DeNiro: Absolutely, they’re already starting off with the limps.

[both laugh]

O’Brien: They need to know that, “I won’t allow you to straddle the middle, because then you’re opposing me. Either you’re for it, or you’re against it.”

DeNiro: Right. Absolutely.

O’Brien: Right. You probably don’t have to convince me, I’m already there. I had a dad, a husband, children, grandchildren – everybody hunts, and that’s great. Go ahead, hunt, I think it’s wonderful. I cook what they bring in. However, I support the Second Amendment to protect my right against foreign and domestic enemies, and if you can’t see the domestic enemy in our nation today, you’re not paying attention to what’s going on.

DeNiro: That’s correct.

O’Brien: Yes, so I feel strongly that we’re probably all right in Ohio. Right now, I am concerned about the nation.

DeNiro: Sure. Like I said, a lot of states are falling like dominoes. Well, thank you very much!

O’Brien: You’re very welcome!

DeNiro: Enjoy the shoot. I hope you get to shoot some machine guns and have some fun!  For Firearms News, I’m editor in chief, Vincent DeNiro, and keep your powder dry! 

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